Heroes of Australia

 In bedrooms of Australia they are waking up and saying

What did I say and you know you should have stopped me and

My god did I say that and saying never that’s the end of it no more 

I’m giving up and swearing off it while their heads are full of saucepans 

falling endlessly to floors made out of steel

And they are wearing cast-iron turbans that are growing ever smaller 

round their temples while the stereo bangs on: it’s descant sackbuts, 

Philip Glass and Chinese Air Force marching bands and whining voices 

Is that mine? that try to surface through the note-sludge and the chord-swamp 

saying that’s the end I know don’t try to talk to me it hurts

The second last drink always is the one that does the damage what 

possessed me to announce I love these cocktails I could drink them 

all night long, or who says cask red wine’s so rough let’s have another 

this is fun, it’s Penny’s big night out, it’s Roger’s last day with us

let’s make sure we all remember while the cafe staff are laughing 

looking on and counting money thinking ambulance or police

They’re waking up and cannot face the ugly thing that’s in the mirrors 

that will catch them with its mug the simulacrum of a plastic drink cup

crushed, its two small pissholes in the snow glued somewhere 

next to burst capillaries’ cadastral lines around what was a nose 

and will those tom-toms never cease

they’re waking up if this can be called waking up instead of 

resurrection from the dead and hearing noises coming out of furry caverns,

burred with algae, fungus, vacuum-cleaner sacks of dust and ashes 

blurred with single malts and rotgut saying who’s a clever boy 

and who’s a clever clogs and whimpering I know

I didn’t mean it while massed choirs shout You did

Across the bedrooms of the nation they are crying o my god and omigod 

and omg and g almighty Christ on earth and on a bicycle what happened 

where was I when that truck hit me and I thought among this blasphemy 

my misery must end why are you with me if not helpmeet, friend 

to guide me through the labyrinth of sin, disgrace and worse, insult 

my colleagues and employer and I have to leave for work now

They are speaking when they finally untie the Windsor knot that was 

their tongue and making words out of the alphabet that’s mixed up 

saying Gertrude Steinways stone me, and the crows and all the raptors 

Nevermore-wise as they hold their safety razors and attempt to shave 

the hairs of dogs that stick out like whatever who remembers, 

are those feet below me mine what face is this I have to look good

for the funeral somebody’s, mine today

They’re lying sweltering in their odour hell what perished here last night 

what am I doing in this bed that keeps on moving who’s that body here 

beside me, they are saying this is rough hold on I’m falling through the universe 

again this bed is slipping into space what is that figure on the carpet, 

that’s no painting that’s my husband that’s my wife I think I’m married 

Who are you where am I now how did we meet o god not you

They’re making whoopee in the barrel that is going over Bridal Falls, 

Niagara, Wollomombi, Apsley Cataract, a dog a snake a wildcat 

getting friendly as they tumble into mateyness and once again with feeling 

to the top, here’s Mister Sisyphus he’s going up again

the warrior scuttling up the heights to that lone pine

that’s every morning in the bedrooms of Australia