This is for when the slats of the night slam shut on you For when the radio is broken and crackles like uranium orchids For when the fohn-wind rattles the telephone wires Like a handful of bones And for when dream ambulances skitter through the streets At midnight In the amusement arcade A sailor whose muscles writhe with tattoos and pornography Doubled up, his vomiting emeralds Elsewhere, a black man with brass teeth And a swallow skin tie is laughing and laughing And offering poisoned candy floss to the children This is for when Your cuff gets caught in the cogs of an urban evening For when your vision is frayed and you don't havve Anymore lust This is for the wasp-woman This is for the torturer's wives with their thumbs blue As billiard chalk This is for all the mathematicians who got mixed up In the dream gang This is for when You get caught in a sleep-riot This is for when Your jism turns to platinium For when the television is full of murder For when the sky is out of order For when your room is crawling with cheap poetry This is for when Your veins are singing with indigo For when the radiator is full of fever For when your sex is full of voodoo For when your clothes are imaginary For when your kitchen is dead This is for when Your flesh creeps and never comes back