pinged hammy

after Ted Berrigan

Now that the Earth is changing I reckon it’s

time to hang the boots up

on account of continental philosophy & climate yes 

& nothing to do with me broken finger & “getting on”

“get ye t’ Sorrento ya fuck” as off limps old Jack R–

Born of it he reckons; turf & oranges,

sleeps with a mouthguard in!

Not that we’d know anything of a life like that,

in that kind of tax bracket 

it’s muck here, pure muck –

“not like it used t’ be” he reckons again, but if I believed 

everything some mad bastard told me I’d be 

dead & a woman 

                 Clearance, that’s it! 

Deliver us from this torrid evening!

Gone without for so long you had time to run the odds

& found you’re making money despite yourself!

                 Call that Stephenson disease –

                     why is it the private becomes public 

              only when you land on yr ass?

Back here,                well, 

tis lovely & you can make it work 

even as the pitch turns brown in July

From my stool I woke, & wondered, 

(for all the good it did) were an angel to step 

through the door, would he appear there as a flanker?

Or would he shepherd me off the field

& down, at last, into the rooms?

I can see him now,

arms like a wrought-iron gate,

& hands like the Yarra Ranges

                        Reminds me of yr

pinged hammy

 falling out of the Lomond Hotel

  “cost of doing business” is 4 weeks rehab

Told the misso you did it taking a screamer

& had a whole chorus backing you up

       to be held like that… 

                       could you imagine?