Days Volume Two

* "This is a private matter, Archer." The gun stirred slightly in the Admiral's hand. I could feel its pressure across the width of the room. "Do as she says." "I heard a shot. Murder is a public matter." "There has been no murder, as you can see." "You don't remember well." Ross MacDonald It wasn’t darkness for darkness sake, it was a torment he couldn’t escape; and so entered the valley under the illusion he was fighting for a better life. That’s what cruelled it in the end; there was no reward. Snakes sat in their offices, rewarding themselves. The labourers fought for survival; and were always down trodden. Was it just a failing psyche? A failure of command? Or something worse, more misshapen, more confused than ever. He was shocked by the blackness; the rapidity of it all. And the corny voices trying to make him laugh. And fading life forms prodding, prodding, as if they really meant something, as if they could make a diffe...

* Big Night On The Town drunk on the dark streets of some city, it's night, you're lost, where's your room? you enter a bar to find yourself, order scotch and water. damned bar's sloppy wet, it soaks part of one of your shirt sleeves. It's a clip joint-the scotch is weak. you order a bottle of beer. Madame Death walks up to you wearing a dress. she sits down, you buy her a beer, she stinks of swamps, presses a leg against you. the bar tender sneers. you've got him worried, he doesn't know if you're a cop, a killer, a madman or an Idiot. you ask for a vodka. you pour the vodka into the top of the beer bottle. It's one a.m. In a dead cow world. you ask her how much for head, drink everything down, it tastes like machine oil. you leave Madame Death there, you leave the sneering bartender there. you have remembered where your room is. the room with the full bottle of wine on the dresser. the room with the dance of the roaches. Perfection in the Star Turd...

* Consummation Of Grief I even hear the mountains the way they laugh up and down their blue sides and down in the water the fish cry and the water is their tears. I listen to the water on nights I drink away and the sadness becomes so great I hear it in my clock it becomes knobs upon my dresser it becomes paper on the floor it becomes a shoehorn a laundry ticket it becomes cigarette smoke climbing a chapel of dark vines. . . it matters little very little love is not so bad or very little life what counts is waiting on walls I was born for this I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. Charles Bukowski Blowing in the cold wind at the back of that desolate farm, heralding nothing but cold sprinkles from a stormy sky to settle the dust, was an old sheet of paper he chased across the parched fields. The End Of Sydney, it announced, and he realised it was an old flyer for a party he had held back in the 1980s. Some might have pointed out to him that just because he was leavin...

* It goes a little something like this In my shoes my toes are busted, My kitchen says my bread is molded, I got a good job at the dollar store, One foot in the hole, one foot gettin' deeper, with a broken mirror and a blown out speaker And I ain't got much else to lose. I'm faded, flat busted; I've been jaded I've been dusted. I know that I've seen better days. One foot in the hole, one foot gettin' deeper, Crank it to eleven, blow another speaker and I ain't got, I ain't got much to loose 'Cause (Chorus) I've seen better days I've been star of many plays I've seen better days and the bottom drops out. I've seen better days I've been star of many plays I've seen better days and the bottom drops out. Now My cup's filled up with five buck wine I find myself here all the time Another rip in the glass another chip in my tooth Rained on I've been stained on Found another goat I tried to put the blame on And now I'm...

* The straight shots of Jack Daniels went down like velvet and he knew soon enough he would be pissed, gloriously pissed, at last at one with the universe. Alcoholism was a spiritual disease, they declared, and he had been blessed with infinite longing all his life. From that first cherry brandy and lemonade the girls sneaked out to him from a nightclub, because he was too young to drink legally, and he drank it quickly and felt as he had never felt before, at one with the world, a unified person, sane, gloriously sane, triumphant, exultant. Alive. Normie Rowe was playing down the road and the next night he went with the little gang from the hotel he had fallen into, from the Stella del Mare, or whatever it was called. And it seemed like the whole world was moving on its axis, and all was well. There had always been a clicking point, the drink where he knew that beyond this one there would be no recourse, no memory, no regret, just glorious black out. He sought the point in the early ...

* The streets were already busy in the pre-dawn. There was an element of flight, he couldn't deny that. The ceilings in the kitchen and bathroom had collapsed, the plumbing was off line and suddenly he was homeless. Sam was at his grandmother's and Henrietta at school. The house was a bombshell, dust everywhere, Craig from nextdoor busily working. If everything he had ever believed in turned out to be a romantic falsehood, as was appearing very likely, even so life offered new turmoils; and he was forced to go. There seemed no other alternative. Everything was an inclusivfe madness. Everything was being swept clean. He loaded old boxes on to the back of the truck they hadd hired from Balmain Rentals. The heating doesn't work but worse, it blows a constant stream of cold air. It's freezing. He became frozen in a way he hadn't been since last in Europe, years ago now. He hadn't expected life to unfold here, children, a stable job. Thank you for my courage, thank y...

* And so, as he passed out of consciousness and into the gutter, the office workers stepped over him as if he didn't exist. They were all the same, these carrion birds, these creatures from another planet, another place, the office workers. They bore no resemblance to him, there was no reflection of his life. They might as well have been another species. He looked up, phasing in and out, but none stopped. Except an old queen. They always stopped. Are you alright? the man asked. And he slurred his words. He wasn't alright, he hadn't been alright for a long time. He was as smashed as he could get, destroying his own consciousness. He didn't want to be awake. He didn't want to feel anything. He came stumbling around the corner, and saw himself, already dead, rising out of the gutter, helped by the gay guy who had stopped out of concern, or maybe he just liked a bit of rough trade. Are you alright, the man repeated, and he stumbled into him, unable to stand up straight....