george rip and the c-word

not enough red wine to kill it
not enough beer to say this
not enough buds to cough it up
no amount of cheap bourbon can quell it
not enough left of you to really do this justice

and I wait with notions of you
the personal political, the poetic farce of this page

and so this stupid necessary heat, this molten national face
drips like bushfire climate fantasy - the C word on my lips

and there you are: floating like the sheep station buddah
your guitar slung like jesus would've stood at the mic
legs apart, stand low, that beast between you

yet the plastic tubes taped to yr thigh
you rip chops back still like you ever did
pain for days after, Verity said - like it was the news
and now here's the cancer that ate into your head

trashing thru the global dissent, the lava light of all this fiscal shit
and god speaks in mysterious rhymes in this place tonight

the sonic glitches and cello sweeps, a missing break beat
in the shitty heat - like a drunken Toodyay shooting gallery

firing 410s at the trees, laughing at the twisted kites
and the faces of stars - despite their gaseous, glittering
glamourous intent like crystals on a thrusted mirror
my sweating face and…

and at last, tears - the early ZZ Top, Stray Cats, Satriani riffs
the salt at my side, the colour-blind totality of this

this funeral moment - these Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers
and if you see me walkin' down the line
with my fav'rite honky tonk in mind
well, I'll be there around suppertime
with my can of dinner and a bunch of fives

ahhh play it boy…

and here we're on our collective knees for the insurance for sure
this conflagration, this chronic addiction to the C-word
a church without pews, without confession
without the trojan horses of prayer, perhaps a hankerchief
a hug another hug, the tears of brothers in my stubbled face
another hot hug at the casket, another few wrinkled memories
like a fucking car crash, a jack thru the quarter-vent
the cops at the morning sky

the people are poets in here, the profit sang loudly in ellipses
our parenthesis, our mocked children of the speed culture
we stack these endless shelves and empty them, these boxes
we consume the brilliant trademarked colours, the colossal binge

and the cheap credit bubbles like whore spit lips
in the sheep runs rubble like the rock-crushed ships

and the alliteration becomes meaningless, doesn't it?
and the repetition becomes pointless, doesn't it?
and the question becomes rhetorical, doesn't it?

the neologisms spat thru the busted syllables
its all for nothing - just to engage in ruptured couplets
a cheap cambell soup-tin nightmare

and the tree-blurred concrete freeway grips
the white lines a hideous cliched exit
but the graf makes me hard, the grubby clouds, wet

everything makes me think of the thin grey jim dunlop pick
I left on your coffin yesterday amongst the cluster of petals,
and moments before you disappear
you and that stupid beautiful wooden container
the grain as pretty as the forest it took
and you're in there man - dead

dead as the C-word - dead like a bushfire culdesac

this funeral moment - these Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers
and if you see me walkin' down the line
with my fav'rite honky tonk in mind
well, I'll be there around suppertime
with my can of dinner and a bunch of fives

ahhh play it boy - and he did

and we skated the crushed skulls of those
that trod the red ground
our new steel strings softer than skin
a Marshall stack in the stage-light
blue red green blue red green… red red white.

and is this nausea for real?
why does this grief keep smashing sidelong into the text?
what is this fear of an A minor 7th?
and just how does a G# make F almost credible?
what is the relative key I asked him?

and if you see me walkin' down the line
with my fav'rite honky tonk in mind
well, I'll be there around suppertime
with my can of dinner and a bunch of fives

we never really knew the maths of those chords,
or the meanings - just the nature of progression,
the popular uprising within this song structure
this poem collapsing faster than the C word

here it is then - under it:

Capital Capital Capital Capitalism

and your exit from this poem makes me breathe a little slower
the grief-hell
the faded flannelette
the mullets
the empty bourbon bottles
the stinking bongs for writing songs
and poems
and words
and chords
and rhythm
and melody
and poems
and words
and death

and can you feel this cello puncturing my heart
here - our collective body, my words not even
meant to go here - this poem about capital never built

instead

this funeral moment - these Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers
and if you see me walkin' down the line
with my fav'rite honky tonk in mind
well, I'll be there around suppertime
with my can of dinner and a bunch of fives

ahhh play it boy

and he did

and he fucking did


rest in peace brother

____________
allan boyd - antipoet
february 12, 2009
for Baden 1964-2009