No longer limber on a roof-top, no Olympic-blond Adonis in
gym shorts; no peaceful release, no ‘time to die’ (nor any happy returns);
but a glistening, cobwebby fool deep and crisp in the corner of a basement on
Christmas Eve, unnoticed as muffled herds go caroling by overhead; white-face painted wooden smile and ruddy toffee-apple cheeks of the broke-backed, inarticulate
boy; sideshow geek between the caravans attracts glossies in a spooky scarecrow
wind, becomes animate paper-boy horror of the Scooby Doo abandoned fairground;
last echo of the old wisdom, Cat cries in the alley, lies sodden in boxes, trodden
underfoot like Autumn leaves […]
Too old, too tired, too slack to die in costume like
Meredith: white-face Tiger Lily stunner’s ringlets and romantic backstroke;
lounging in the attic, loose-limbed in lacy sleeves, the rakish swashbuckler’s
last swish of the rapier, last Z in the blood and sand; O waits and hopes fade in
the white room at twilight, and wishes amongst the dishes and the swashing of the
washing, and wonders for years and years and years what else can you show me? […]
And the red rock asks no questions; tells no
lies; like media isn’t anything, like the pointlessness of space; this vacuous
confection, this tasteless meringue: desert sand-box malls are living-dead
with the sound of awful families and these big, superannuated babies in big,
white Lovejoy shirts and big, pink blue remembered shorts like long, slow
screws against the wall, like dogs all eighteen to thirty drunk and disorderly in the office car-park; absurd ranks
of Lofties whispering grass in Benny Hill jam-jar specs and Rusty Trawler dyed-blond
number ones; camp charades with lah di dah gunners tinkling the ivories – fine
pair of shoulders there, show ‘em off, show ‘em off; stride the malls stupid on Sangria, looking
for Diana on Spanish beaches […]
Oh, so overwhelmed by fuck-off contempt as quick,
slick metal-box huge white cocks weave the dusty Vegas highways; flash and jostle, endanger life and limb; stamp like wooden trouser-men, slaughter beautiful sons and daughters for no reason; or hot from surfing the family dunes, because they
can; because they can; these awful people with nothing to do; useless
tontos ride the range, and look for kicks like white trash outback scum [...]
Uh, oh; the big nothings ride in from the Big Nothing; and here come the glass-eyed,
pink-faced zombie barbies, arms fulla shopping and heads fulla nothing […]
Time was O turned his critical lens inwards and
burned up on re-entry; now the lens turns outwards, and his inwards are dumb
and numb with nothing […]
