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.
Talk to me about the sea of sand drift and sea breeze murmurings of tidal sliding and wavelets gliding onto a peaceful shore
of curling surf and whale songs of towering waves and sailor’s graves of a blow driven chop hard to cross and the constant desire for more
of rock pool eddies of a wind unsteady of sudden squalls and risking all of unpredictable storms defying norms of salty landless freedom
of reflected moonlight and sunsets bright of dolphins playing and albatross staying of cutting the water and catching fish of life in Neptune’s kingdom
of thunderheads piled high or a cloudless sky of seabirds arriving splashing and diving of phosphorescent wake so easy to take of distant horizons all around
tell me tales about the briny sea how to travel a weather filled journey crossing oceans wide upon the tide and I’ll take you where I’m bound
