Читать книгу The Sick Bag Song - Nick Cave - Страница 11

Then in the morning we bus it up to Milwaukee,

Where if you are not German then you’re a Pole.

At least that’s what the guy from Mader’s Restaurant says,

As he serves us a pretzel big as a severed human head.

Then into the rainy night we run, to the Intercontinental Hotel,

Our blue plastic flak jackets pulled over our heads,

Past the autograph hounds and into the bathroom mirror, I sing,

When I wear this mask the girls all scream When I wear this one they laugh instead. When I hit MiIwaukee with a pint of cream, They pull the sheets over their heads.

I carefully concoct a paste in a bowl and I paint my hair black,

So that it sits like a sleek, inky raven’s wing

On top of my multi-storey forehead. I lean in and gaze deep

Into the confused crop-circles of my eyes. In the right eye,

In the blue, is a little brown discolouration and the whites

Are beginning to yellow. There is a liver spot on my left temple.

A spider-vein on my right nostril. The bathroom light is brutal.

I reposition my face so that I stop looking

Like Kim Jong-un and start looking more like Johnny Cash,

Or someone. Hang on! Just a minute! There you go! Like that!

•

In a studio in Malibu, Johnny Cash sat down and played a song. He was partially blind and could barely walk. I was there. I saw a sick man pick up his instrument and be well.

With regret I have seen the opposite too. Pick, pick, pick.

I have seen well men pick up their instruments and be sick.

•

Resist the urge to create.

Resist the belief in the absurd.

Resist by means of provocation.

Resist by means of sickness and sadness.

Resist by means of masturbation.

Resist by motivational manuals.

Resist by doing for others.

Resist by comparison to others.

Resist through the opinions of others.

These are The Nine Bedevilments of Advancement. They live in our blood and skin and nerves. They are as present and cataclysmic to our progress as a runaway train thundering towards us, as we stand rigid with fear on the tracks.

The oozing entrails of my sick bag sweep stars and stripes

Across the sawdust floor of the USA. But, hark! What is that sweet breath behind my ear, I hear you say? It is the Muses and Johnny Cash blowing us along our way.