Days Volume Two

* Grisly body search continues as death toll rises ABC Online, Australia - 7 hours ago Authorities are expecting to find more bodies as the devastating bushfires continue to rage across Victoria. The death toll has risen rapidly through the ... Corporate Australia raises millions for bushfire victims Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 3 hours ago COMMONWEALTH BANK: $1m (pledged Sunday), plus $100 for every run scored and $5000 for each six during Tuesday's one-day international between Australia and ... Communities 'less prepared for fire' The Australian, Australia - 4 hours ago Article from: Australian AP COMMUNITIES on the outskirts of cities like Melbourne are less prepared to deal with bushfires than in the past, an expert says. ... Obama offers US help to fight Vic fires Ninemsn, Australia - 57 minutes ago US President Barack Obama has telephoned Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to offer his condolences over bushfires that have left at least 173 dead. ... Bushfire...

* A Dead Song This is True Mister nothing said forever said I can sing Hit it! Make it a dead one with words like blood, soldier mother O.K. O.k. I want to sleep before the end which is impolite Hit It! Make it a dead one If nothing crops up I'll give you a ring you can sing the end o.k o.k. then I could get all the little animals out of my room Hit it! With a broom O.k O.k Put them in a big white sack no visitors came hit it! With words like..... Thou shalt not The end Nick Cave. And then it seemed, after that sad death, that nothing was the same, the light more flimsy, our fragile flesh even less glued to the planet surface. Transitory moments, these consciences, fleeting gaps in the history of the world. That was all. He grimaced and it was gone. He shook his head and was old. The3 surface was coated with young, dynamic figures. He looked on from an ancient place, his ancient soul, and was not comforted. These trolling, roiling moments, these clouds boiling above, the intense, c...

* "The world begins at the kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live... "Perhaps the world will end at the kiitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite." Joy Harjo. I first met Colin in the late 1960s, when he probably wasn't much older than 16. He used to hang around a squat at the back of Victoria Street behind the Cross. Now there are multi-million dollar apartments overlooking the city, but then it was a squat with that cane matting on the floor that always smelt of bong water. I always remember him sitting up in bed with his then boyfriend Phillip looking as pleased as punch. They were volatile, always arguing and getting back together, always fabulously out of it. Of course there were a string of boyfriends ever after, Howard, Tom, Alastair, others. Almost all of them are gone now. None of the gang I mixed with back in the late 60s would think of having sex with a man except for money, but Colin was gay before it beca...

And no-one saw the carny go And the weeks flew by Until they moved on the show Leaving his caravan behind It was parked out on the south east ridge And as the company crossed the bridge With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed It shone, just so, upon the edge Away, away, we're sad to say Dog-boy, atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands There was not one among them that did not cast an eye behind In the hope that the carny would return to his own kind And the carny left behind a horse, so skin and bone that he named "sorrow" And it was in a shallow, unmarked grave that the old nag was laid in the then parched meadow And it was the dwarves that were given the task of digging the ditch And laying the nag's carcass in the ground While boss Bellini, waved his smoking pistol around saying "The nag was dead Meat" "We can't afford to carry dead weight" while The whole company standing about Not making a sound And turning to dwarves perche...

* Empty out your pockets, toss the lot upon the floor. All those treasures, my friend, you don't need them anymore. Your days are all through dying, they gave all their ghosts away, so kiss close all your wounds and call living life a day. For the planets gravitate around you, and the stars shower down around you, and the angels in heaven adore you, and the saints all stand and applaud you. so faraway, so faraway and yet so close. Say farewell to the passing of the years, though all your sweet goodbyes will fall upon deaf ears. Kiss so softly the mouths of the ones you love, beneath the September moon and the heavens above. And the world will turn without you, and history will soon forget about you, but the heavens they will reward you, and the saints will be there to escort you. So faraway, so faraway and yet so close. Do not grieve at the passing of mortality, for life's but a thing of terrible gravity. And the planets gravitate around you, and the stars shall dance about you...

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A. Hitch-hiked her way across the USA Plucked her eyebrows on the way Shaved her legs and then he was a she She says, Hey babe Take a walk on the wild side She said, Hey honey Take a walk on the wild side Candy came from out on the Island In the backroom she was everybody's darlin' But she never lost her head Even when she was giving head She says, Hey babe Take a walk on the wild side Said, Hey babe Take a walk on the wild side And the colored girls go doo do doo do doo do do doo Little Joe never once gave it away Everybody had to pay and pay A hustle here and a hustle there New York City's the place where they said, Hey babe Take a walk on the wild side I said, Hey Joe Take a walk on the wild side Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets Lookin' for soul food and a place to eat Went to the Apollo You should've seen 'em go go go They said, Hey sugar Take a walk on the wild side I Said, Hey babe Take a walk on the wild side Al...

* Ah, Sydney. In the summertime it can be an easy place to like. Yet there have never been more reasons to leave. The average morning speed on our main roads is half the 60 kmh speed limit. When you try to escape for the weekend, it can take an hour just to get to Hornsby, Sutherland or Springwood. A taxi from the airport to the Hills incurs more than $15 in tolls and fees, making the cost of anything at the airport seem reasonable. The only metro we will see in the next 10 years is the well-dressed male sort, and there are more than enough of those already. And we will never agree on whose backyard is the best location for a second airport. This month in the Cities of Opportunity index, Sydney ranked behind Sao Paulo for transport. I have been to Sao Paulo. It's like the set of Bladerunner; I loved it. But the traffic is so bad the rich take helicopters to lunch. No other Australian city does parking police, snobs, violent drunks, ice addicts, road rage and tossers like Sydney. Ev...