Augie March Thin Captain Crackers
Here on the hill above the settlement, the buildings are talking,
A tower to a terrace says the word's on the street, the dead are walking
The brows are arched of the mews across the street,
By a pale ochre light are made out heavy reliefs,
Where all your dreams are borrowed all your senses are thieves,
And Ned Kelly won't ride past your window despite the freeze on your disbelief,
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down,
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked through the centre of the town,
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown, he's been too long underground.
"I see," said a blind builder to his deaf daughter
as he picked up his hammer and saw,
"if blood is thicker than water
why'd you dress in the dress that you wore’"
The blind are drawn by a blank curiosity
(Don't bring 'em up),
Drawn on mirrors where windows used to be
(if you can't put 'em down),
Some people might say "My desire's not the captain of me!"
And Red Barry might fly from his pedestal at night to spook the
university
O tailor my bones what need new clothes but the lower half loves
what the upper half loathes, I could get around like an intellectual I
suppose, wearing the highs with the lows,
But I’d sooner sing these doleful drones by barcoo dog and
lagerphones, but my hand don’t write when a feather it holds, it hangs like a wren with its neck wrung, as did the bells in my quasi commode where I have to shift my head to see where my pillow go’d, some mornings I wake up by the side of the road,
Bringing it up for the gutter,
After putting it down for the crowd’
I said I would arrive in the capital’
After chuckin’ outside the St. Augustines purple parish hall’
Don’t bring ‘em up if you can’t put ‘em down,
And you know I can’t.
