Two am

It happens on shuffle about two am
the mushrooms kick in and I’m back again
there are cartoon tug boats pulling cars up Elizabeth Street
and on the corner with Bourke we finally meet
you’re the she devil waiting on the stairway down
I see you and I want to run but
there’s only water above ground

my next decision anchors me to your face and my fate
your forked tongue a serpent flickers like a snake
then you grab me by the arm and march me straight to the pit
where we romp and we stomp to a demonic beat
I look around for the band but they’re across the the street
I squint and I lean over oh my god it’s Canned Heat
the boogie is like music no one has ever played before
my head is grooving in a groove demanding more and more

the shots keep on coming the baskets of joints
the buckets of mushrooms all make their point
I’m driven I’m driving the boats make bow waves
sloshing against car doors wipers swishing at rain
there are clowns in the building with clown smiles on clown heads
their clownish white faces fill me with dread
then the road starts unwinding like a ribbon in the wind
I’m on it then I’m off it then I’m back on again

but the buildings have gone there’s just more water and waves
the car wallows I flounder wondering will I be saved
as the light in the sky gets wrapped like a present
and the ribbon like road forms a bow for an instant
before everything lurches the world tilts and I merge
with blackness then foliage because I miss the next curve

there’s a thumping on the roof by a man in a dressing gown
there’s blood on my face from my head running down
there are broken teeth in my mouth making me spit
but the fog in my head means I just sit and sit
I see a smoking red engine wrapped round an ethereal tree
which like the devil woman it seems was keen to meet me.

The bed

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“It’s not really a bad sort of a bed”

Yes, I think that’s verbatim, what she said

As the sheets of the bed turned brightly red

 

As the blood pooled, ran, dripped onto the floor

As it stickily coagulated, could run no more

She, holding the knife, felt she’d settled her score

 

The body lay prone with wounds in the back

I couldn’t believe our assailant’s strong hack

Or the size of the knife she wielded with such knack

 

Her slightly built body, her small fine fingered hand

The ring on one finger, the jewelled wedding band

The wet sleeve to the elbow, all bloodied and damned

 

Her action reaction, tragically violent in hew

In her mind no alternative, nothing else to do

With everything gone and nothing to lose

 

When I walked in the room she was standing there

A satisfied smile, a flushed face, a hand in his hair

I approached quietly for the knife from this desolate pair

 

That’s when she said, “It’s not a bad sort of bed”

One that they’d shared, planned their lives up ahead

But it seems he’d had others in the bed instead

And the only life she saw had him on the bed dead