Days Volume Two

* Sometimes the experience of writing my memoirs is like the experience of life--euphoric; sometimes it is homely and domestic; sometimes there is the sense of the ceaseless surge of the sea, of a fierceness of energy; sometimes I feel as if I am in possession of the heart's foul rag and bone shop, as the elder Yeats poignantly described his inner life. Sometimes I feel as if I am obsessively preoccupied with refining perceptions, with analysing. Sometimes I feel my agenda is in some basic ways one that is similar to Yeats who once said the only two things that should concern a serious writer is: death and sex. Well, like so many things, there is some truth here. I feel no need to continue the external journey, occupied as it was with living in some two dozen towns over the last forty years, but I do not want my life to end. This tinkering in the world of thanatos, of the death wish, does occur for short periods late at night, a residue of this bi-polar disorder. But life's jo...

* Through sheer willpower, he managed to get through two weeks without contacting her, the business card burning a hole in his wallet the entire time. But then Pastor Dennis gave a sermon on the subject of "Temptation" that made him rethink his strategy. "You know what temptation is?" he asked. "It's a fungus. It hides in the dark corners of the soul, those damp cracks and moist crevices we'd prefer not to think about. Well, I'll tell you what, people. You can't ignore temptation. Nuh-uh. That's how it thrives. You pretend it's not there, and pretty soon this tiny speck of mold turns into a giant poison mushroom with deep, twisted roots. Then see how easy it is to get rid of it! No, the thing to do with temptation is face it head-on at high noon! Right away! The second you realise it's there! Expose it to the fresh air and sunlight of Jesus Christ! Because you know what, friends? That slimy fungus can't stand the light of day! It...

* Beautiful waste, stupid feeling Why do you feel it? When will it stop? Beautiful waste, wonderful feeling Ready to die now, ready to drop River of waste, mountain of feeling Bigger than love, bigger than us Beautiful waste, terrible fever of love Stupid feeling making fools out of us Fools out of us Beautiful waste, stupid feeling Try and ignore it, tell it to stop River of sadness, one moment of glory Don't it hurt and sting when your love runs out Over and out Beautiful waste, stupid feeling Why do you feel it? When will it stop? River of sadness, one moment of glory Don't it hurt and sting when your love runs out Over and out Feeling of love, feeling of love Over and out The Triffids The bells ring out across the suburb, as they do every Sunday morning. There's acres of despair to be overcome, as the sun catches the roof tops and the last of the all night revellers makes their way into sleepy corners, derelict houses, auntie's place. At dawn they were still arguing...

* The thing that baffled him was why a good Christian girl like Carrie would even want to get tangled up with a guy like him. Couldn't she see he was damaged goods - a divorced father, a recovering addict, a musician who could have qualified for his own episode of Behind the Music, if only anyone had ever heard of him? The flip side of his inability to see what was in it for Carrie was an all-too-clear awareness of what wasn't in it for him. Because the sad fact was that, even now, after he'd accepted Jesus into his heart, turned his back on drugs and alcohol, and committed himself to walk in the light of the Lord, he still couldn't manage to get himself all that excited about good Christian girls. Certain kinds of toothpaste, it turned out, were harder to get back into the tube than others. The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta. The self satisfaction of the smug rulers of the land, their absolute divorce from the ways of ordinary men, the brutality that he had seen in h...

* Well I find it repulsive What you're doing to yourself You're treating your body Like it was someone else Like it was someone else You're starring in a movie And the cameras start to roll The lights reveal the burnt and gaping Caverns and the holes I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish I could be like you Could be like you You're lying in my parlour Like a ship that's been wrecked The strangers shuffle in the room To pay their last respects To pay their last respects I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish I could be like you Could be like you It's a matter of opinion It's a question of degree If I had been nicer Would you still be here with me? Would you still be here with me? I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish I could be with you Could be with you The Triffids, Bad Timing. They are so smug, the middle class left, pontificating on about the evils of carbon dioxide and capitalism on the ABC, shadowed by darker forces of which they were completely oblivious. There has been a g...

* ABOUT fifteen miles below Monterey, on the wild coast, the Torres family had their farm, a few sloping acres above a cliff that dropped to the brown reefs and to the hissing white waters of the ocean. Behind the farm the stone mountains stood up against the sky. The farm buildings huddled like little clinging aphids on the mountain skirts, crouched low to the ground, as though the wind might blow them into the sea. The little shack, the rattling, rotting barn were grey-bitten with sea salt, beaten by the damp wind until they had taken on the colour of the granite hills. Two horses, a red cow and a red calf, half a dozen pigs and a flock of lean, multi-coloured chickens stocked the place. A little corn was raised on the sterile slope, and it grew short and thick under the wind, and all the cobs formed on the landward side of the stalks. Mama Terres, a lean, dry woman with ancient eyes, had ruled the farm for ten years, ever since her husband tripped over a stone in the field one day a...