for H

alternate versions of tom thumb’s blues
you’re done up like somebody’s dream and that band
next door makes young marble giants

of triple m evergreens a weekend blanking the present
while the salt water creek breathes under the highway
snorkellers fetch oysters and outboard cowboys

flirt with the vagaries of the bar the beautiful
traces of a lie taking a tennis court oath
a third date encounter of the suburban kind

the blades topple the addicks en route to wembley
a destiny to delight the marketing department it winds
the month’s spring the way you unravel

a story with more moving parts than the automaton
barnuming the gossip shifting all the tickets
to the miraculous medicine show i feel

like a lucky country like a bloke who’s figured
that if you dial up the moon and stare down the barrels
any great adventure can be tapped