Your Strange Music (For Jamie Stewart)

Somehow you understand
the world is full of Bali-smash bells
grinding guitars and doomsday drums.
something angry and fierce
is trying to hold on, hold on.
Even though it’s tearing out of my skin
with a long knife, please,
don’t let the sounds of a pretty flute distract you
(for it will try)
or the howl of the maelstrom molest you
(keep walking, keep walking on through)
I’ve noticed it too,
the sounds of frightening decay.
Oh, we’re having a mighty good time.
but we aren’t
and the see-saw of nausea, black blood and gangrene
when you know it’s lose it or die
(no time to laugh, no time to cry)
leaves you waiting in the sinner’s café,
waiting I say, for a bullet in the brain
to make a tunnel for the train
the clouds remain, raining
until you’re met on the street
by crazy Rebecca…


…and something small and still
something that struggled for so long
lifts it’s feeble hands to the sky
drops them and shockingly,
dies.