sweden

yeah

what a beautiful place

oh god how i miss sweden

my two eldest twin daughters

identical n graceful creatures

half me half strangers

i sit here as the winter sun dies

i think of sweden

i had a lovely little apartment on bastugatan (sauna street)

huge windows

i saw the silent soft snow

i saw the endless twilight hang in that northern sky

i wandered thru stockholms streets n gardens

i caught trains that took me here and there

i watched the news in swedish n understood almost every word

i bought n took drugs

i got sick and tired

i got ripped off and i got wasted

i wasted my time

i wasted my precious time

i ate toasted sandwiches in kungstradgarden

i went swimming with martin krall out at the salt sea baths

i bought risi-fruttis at the sodermalm 7-11

i went to n.a. meetings in a school building

i smoked prince cigarettes and took grov snus

when me n krall were broke we lived on semolina pudding

we met new dealers in new places

we shared what we had which sometimes wasnt much

the twillies would stay over at my place sometimes

everymorning theyd have an argument on how we were going to get to school

elli always said train minna always said walk

they liked the spice girls n hanson

they liked a group called aqua

all this seems so long ago

stockholm such a delicate little city compared to sydney

so petite so civilized

its natives are so statuesque

their broad cheekbones their blue eyes

their archaic language like some weird old english

their seeming cold and distant

my bed was a loft bed above my front door

my kitchen was tiled blue

i sat n ate my semolina pudding n krall n i would figure out how to get money

every now n then some royalties’d come thru n i’d live like a king for a week

i’d go shopping at soderhallen n eat at the veggie restaurant

i’d go out to carina n jannes n buy up big n maybe drink pear cider with em

i’d get my guitars back out of hock from pantbanken

which was next door to bjorn borgs underwear palace

you could buy blocks of hash from the rastas in the parks

we’d get loaded n listen to ambient music and underground lovers ways t’burn

i got arrested for riding a train without a ticket

i spent a lot of time waiting here n there for people to show up

a lot of waiting around

i became a fixture on the scene

people called me “englishman”

hey englishman …you want some dynamite stuff

a lot of those people are dead now

enrico ruiz revilla

carina

guld leffe

that italian guy i cant remember his name

tomas the school teacher

leffe the cab driver n his young wife

so many gone

so many unremembered

so many disappeared

just as i talk about this very thing

margot smith rings me up

shes in a bad way n not long to go she says

what a waste of an incredible talent

what a voice what a writer

yeah this life can break your heart

it will break your heart before its over

or you havent lived

people will exit yer life

people will get sick n old n theyll exit

only one way in

but so many ways out

the needle

the bottle

cancer

car crash

heart attack

suicide

all the rest

snakebite beesting lightning strike jealous husbands

execution hep c pianos falling on top of ya

still i sit here in this house type type type

the kids are out with their uncle at a film

i am stone cold sober

55 looking back over my chaotic life n the people ive known

all the backstage bullshit and carryon

tv studios recording studios planes n helicopters

record shops n music shops n grocery shops

women come n go thru my life

women with their beauty n softness

women with their soothing hands and sweet words

women with their moods n demands

women wrapping me round their fingers

women who i always remember

women who i hope to always forget

women from all over the world pass thru my life

yeah at one stage i had a girl in almost every port

rome

portugal

germany

spain

south america north america east n west america

what was i thinking?

what was i doing?

desire was whipping me along

later to be replaced by smack

at least smack killed off all that rampant desire

and it became the question n the answer in every situation

i guess before that i was quite a playboy ha ha

using n being used in turn

loves subtle n brutal games

my black book bulged with exotic names

later to be replaced by dealers phone numbers

a girl in every port became a dealer in every port

fly in to such n such n get on that phone

keep those plates spinning boy

might actually fit in a concert too

but music often came way down on the agenda

too much other stuff

a lot of attractions n distractions

music…..? nah…dont have much time for that mate…gotta lot else on

fuck i had some ups n downs tho

fuck i copped some highs n some lows

now i just want some peace n quiet i say

but what do i really want?

what do i really feel?

always one more layer of me to peel back to find out the truth

the elusive frickin’ truth which everyone pursues in vain

thrills n spills n hotels n gigs

arguing with the fucking boys

always the eternal arguing

the grudges the complaints the bitching the moaning the backstabbing bastards

greed naivete stupidity ignorance vanity revenge

the endless mind games

trying to resist the idiot zeitgeist that makes ya into a fool

everyone had an opinion on what i should do

everybody could see how i coulda done it better

everyone was a genius in fucking hindsight

theres a million tongues whispering in my ear tonight….

jesus

now i’m like this proper old hemingway geeza (minus the talent)

sitting here on a bleak lonely sat’day nite

on my bloody own n i dont mind it for a bit

im totally changed from that old pre-smack smart alec

im pushing bloody sixty ….aint it the troof…?

funny thing is i really dont mind

death dont daunt me that much

it looms tantalizingly somewhere ahead like a well earned rest

as long as its vaguely somewhere ahead not this year not next year

not the year after that

its funny because out of that immature sapling

the time being sprung n i know a lotta ya will be sad when n if i do

shuck off this mortal coil

it’ll be like the end of something in yer life for you as well

the geeza who wrote those songs you listened to all those years ago

oh no

the end of an error

allright

never mind all that

i feel ok for my advanced years

i can kick on for a while yet i guess

i can hear the kids at the door

i gotta get em in n get some dinner down their mouths

i gotta put on my daddy hat n be some bloody use

instead of this endless introspection

aurora minus her tonsils n ads

eve looking tall n grown up…always cheerful n buoyant

scarlet a bit of a chip off the olde block

ok thats it then

thanks for frequenting my new fab site

i love ya n then some

sk