Sighing

I trip to South America soon, with Dad in tow, 

for five long years we burn under the American sun. 

I have one year's money saved, but while there make fuck-load on sale of manuscript, nature unknown.

 

I take bunkers of cookies and wash them down with soapy beer and faeces, 

tomorrow I will break my back lifting Moloch to Heaven. 

I feel like the world is getting heavier every day, but I don't know who to consult. 

Most people are unfamiliar with the concept of weight, they only understand smell, and what it feels like to rub pine cones against your vagina.

I eat from tubes of sludge like a swamp monster raised in New York, unable to understand how a carrot works – some say it must be chopped and cooked, others tell me to shove it up my arse: 

either way it ends up tasting like shit and making a mess of my sheets.

 

If only I knew what the point of life is, I'd start focusing on it now. 

I wish I could play music with my fist and my cock; 

as it is I must buy an instrument and hire instructor. 

My voice sounds more like a crocodile with every letter I write, but I am told the public prefer alligators these days. 

I am non-existent some days, other days I smell so bad my underwear ignites spontaneously and I must carry one of those purse-size fire extinguishers everywhere.

 

Bob Dylan told me they'll stone me whether I am right or wrong, and that I must do what is required or why bother. 

But his voice was hard to understand due to forty years of tobacco. 

He didn't have time to shake my hand because there were another nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine ticket holders behind me, 

and he could barely see me through the glare of his celebrity. 

He wondered why Paul Holmes had not yet called him and I said, “You've outlasted him.” 

Please don't die before I am rich and famous enough to introduce you to my Dad. 

Does it say Robert Zimmerman on your passport?

 

I don't have $170 to see you at The Civic, because I'm too lazy to sell my words and figure no one wants to buy them. 

It's time I gave up and got a job, 

handed back the towel marked “Homosexual” and got married in a Catholic church to someone, preferably a woman, who is at least six months pregnant, and looks wonderful in her specially shaped dress. 

It's time I enjoyed inserting myself into a vagina and stop staring at boys, wondering about their bodies. 

It's time I sold my video collection before it's entirely worthless. 

How much did you get for your conscience? Can it be classified as a rare item? 

I checked, there're fuck loads on Trade Me and some are pretty cheap. 

I like to think mine's above average, maybe I'll hold onto it and the value will increase. 

(Though there are always teenagers selling theirs for piss money.) (The more intelligent ones require marijuana to forget their bad grades; which makes them feel like criminals now, rather than later during their careers.)

 

Theoretically my career will be in writing, though I have to sell some first. I did get $50 for winning a poetry slam, but I don't feel that rich yet, that's not even minimum wage. 

The Listener have not published any of the poetry I sent them and the last submission did not even get a no-thanks reply.

I'll make money when I figure out how to lie without crying. 

Maybe if I didn't smoke so much pot in the last year of my course I would understand The Industry and they would now be happily raping me for an agreeable fee once a week; 

or maybe I could just write down whatever I want and they'd do something with it, paying me whatever they could. 

The thing is, I'm too lazy and scared to do anything but stand in the dark writing things down and then saying them out loud when there's enough silence to fill. 

I figure I must be of great value, I just haven't figured out how to package myself yet. 

And I'm a bit worried that all these great people who like me will freak out if I fuck up; even once. But surely they've all fucked up before. 

And there're plenty of places to run away to if need be; Auckland's pretty piddly really. It takes ages to drive around, but there's more money in L.A. for people like me with no talent for being a hack. 

Why did I choose L.A.? Is that not where all the English-speaking hacks gravitate?

 

I want to go explore that other America, but I hear it's full of gringos and I better watch my back and my bags and my kidneys. 

In South America we will cut down trees to see how old they are; 

we'll drive around looking for someone to donate to carbon-reduction eco-fund; 

and we'll continue to wonder what it is we're supposed to be doing.