Where the faculties of the skulls no longer admit the worms of the senses1
We’re still here in Melbourne
where we held our breath and forgot how to exhale
We’re still here in Melbourne
where our hypoxic minds grow inaudibly bushed and unhinged
We’re still here in Melbourne
where our daydreams get squeezed senseless and caged on the smooth plastic sides of Kewpie mayonnaise and our dreams will taste umami flavoured enhanced when we finally get to lick them
We’re still here in Melbourne
where the ground shuddered as we leapt under doorframes and tittered with quick gags uproarious and vertigoed tipsy then wilted in hangover despair
We’re still here in Melbourne
where the seafarers forgotten on ships never felt the earth shake but watched exporting empty steel containers domino under God’s finger flick with no Christmas hauls to make good on the swipes of stressed-out wired punters
We’re still here in Melbourne
where we tolerate absurdity with doubt and belief and commitment and duty and we brush dark days aside and chase the sun pouring pancakes for picnics until we’ve all got Tourette’s of the insane cursing kind
We’re still here in Melbourne
where the rebels revolt with grog cans and neon spitting on scrubs and the middle class snort snow around private spas
We’re still here in Melbourne
where dissenters wreak Camus’ crime of liberty at the cost of humanity when others are too sick to protest or inhale and do they even remember what they are fighting for
We’re still here in Melbourne
where our misplaced souls drift all day waiting for our football in a far-off place with absent charred snags and green salad as we thump our cataleptic keyboards and ventilated chests when the game is won by mullets after curfew
We’re still here in Melbourne
where playhouses sit unconscious and songsters and artists and comedians unite in warm sad penniless virtual cosmos
We’re still here in Melbourne
where the workers and loyalists and families of all breeds line up for grub rations in a war they never signed up to
We’re still here in Melbourne
where 20 more quakes might defibrillate our passions back to our bodies
We’re still here in Melbourne
where 20 more quakes might also make us forget which colour toothbrush is ours in the jar and make us laugh and quiver as transient dementia heckles and spirits are fordone
We’re still here in Bearbrass still here in Batmania
where we go batshit cracked as chart-topping days drag on and hotlines run hot with mental fevers
We’re still here in Blacky in Fitzy in Willy in Broadie in Brunny in Franga in Ferny in Lavo
where all this defines us not partitions of virus or break-ups over politics or anarchy dripping on highways and sacrificial stone
We’re still here in sagacious classy arty sporty foodie caffeinated hipster human Melbs
where it’s still all that
Still here
where we wait restless for the pulse and for the mess to be archived in hardbacks that won’t exist impatient to love and live and clasp this city again
Here
- Howl Part III, Alan Ginsberg 1956
