‘Normal’ is the perfect aspiration of the unsuccessful.

CARL JUNG.

Tom Traubert’s Blues.

Wasted and wounded, it ain’t what the moon did

I got what I paid for now

See you tomorrow hey Frank can I borrow

a couple of bucks from you

To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

I’m an innocent victim of a blinded alley

And I’m tired of all these soldiers here

No one speaks English,and everything’s broken

and my Stacys are soaking wet

To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

Now the dogs are barking

and the taxi cabs parking

A lot they can do for me

I begged you to stab me

you tore my shirt open

And I’m down on my knees tonight

Old Bushmills I staggered

you buried the dagger in

Your silhouette window light

To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

Now I’ve lost my Saint Christopher

now that I’ve kissed her

And the one-armed bandit knows

And the maverick Chinaman, and the cold blooded signs

And the girls down by the strip tease shows

go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

No,  I don’t want your sympathy

the fugitives say

That the streets aren’t for dreaming now

manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories

They want a piece of the action anyhow

 

Go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

And you can ask any sailor

and the keys from the jailor

And the old men in wheelchairs know

that Matilda’s the defendant, she killed about a hundred

And she follows wherever you may go

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,

You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

And it’ a battered  old suitcase

to a hotel someplace

And a wound that will never heal

No prima donna the perfume is on an

Old shirt that is stained

with blood and whiskey

And goodnight to the street  sweepers

the night watchmen flame keepers

And goodnight Matilda too

TOM WAITS.

 

DUBROVNIK: June 1977.

Mid-summer, mid-afternoon, Mediterranean sun, bouncing off the tiles, the medieval walls and the weathered, sun-bleached shutters, almost audible.The shadows black as pitch. The cicadas a wall of sound.                                                               Then silence, as if the cicadas, as one, responded to the maestro’s falling baton. Not even a dog barking. One window, just a black square, unshuttered, as the old town slept away the heat of the afternoon.  Then, almost blasphemous,  blaring from the open window…..

” There is a rose in Spanish Harlem, a red rose……..”

R.I.P.    ARETHA  FRANKLIN.