Evening darkens everything

from East to West its filmy black encroaching.

Kimbo John was squinting hard,

the aztec mask was bleeding on the mountain.

Kimbo John turned the wheel

and stopped towards a naked man approaching

who said he was reality

but we recognised the old man of the mountain.  

I turned to Kimbo John and asked

if he knew just where the hell this road was leading.

He answered in his driving gloves

“I know as much as me,”

and with this he kept on smiling.

The silver on the other side

appeared to rise and mock the sacred bleeding;

the car was still and like a grave

but all the while I thought we still were riding.  

The old man wiped the air away

and from his belly said

"You cannot think of anything

but the Ghost Grader of Broken Head."  

A giant mouse intruded,

tipped his bowler hat and held our close attention.

"It's not the way,” he nodded,

his ears were pink, his long fur coat was champagne

and his eyes were pink as well,

"It's not the way," he nodded "just to mention

where this road leads

you will learn more but please switch off your engine."

Kimbo John did as the mouse
had asked, but I kept all my pistons pounding.
The mouse and Kimbo John sat down
passing popcorn to the old man of the mountain.
I said that klaxon voices
and wild dogs were barking all around me –
the giant mouse took off his hat
and said he sure was glad at last he'd found me.
 
The old man dusted off his feet
and rolled a cigarette.
"You're on the road" he rolled and groaned
"of the Ghost Grader of Broken Head."
 

"Don't play with me," I pleaded
"I have driven long and hard, this bloody drive
is rocky and it's jaded.
I don't know if I'm lucky to have got this far alive.
We hit the trees and desert plains
the melting meat and carnival of longknives,
it's all I bloody needed.
And Kimbo John was laughing till he died."

 
I spoke for seven hours
and seven times seven days I spoke my picture.
We sat for seventy-seven years,
they sat and ate their peanut popcorn mixture.
“What's that?" John grinned his eyes,
"I thought I saw a raven in the river."
"I wish, I wish," replied the mouse,
"This bio-pic could flicker on forever."
 
The old man started at the sound
and like a bedsheet said
"I dreamed I saw four travellers on
the Ghost Grader of Broken Head."
 
"Is that your fear?" I laughed.
The old man belched and donned a full-face helmet.
The giant mouse rose to his feet and asked
if I knew fear please would I tell it.
The hour was late, I checked the sky,
the rabid dog was back to claim his victim.
"Do I know fear!" I halloweened. "Do you know fear?"
they echoed from their beds of grassy velvet.
 
"We have no time," the old man said,
"Coming sirs? Or will you help me up and see me gone?"
Kimbo John ate all his lunch,
the giant mouse strolled and sang a mourning song.
I scratched my eye and held my coins,
I spat and hummed and corkscrewed in the sandstone.
"Go?" I screamed. "Where to?
Good friends, good friends, good friends 
where are you going?"

The three turned round from up the road,
they beckoned and they said
"We go, we go to get on board 
the Ghost Grader of Broken Head."
 
"I'll come!" I called, "Hold on a while"
and loaded up a sailor's trunk with portraits
and sixteen tons of arguments.
"Reserve a seat!" I screamed "I think I can afford it!"
"We know you can," they answered,
"This ride is booked for deadshits, dogs and paupers.
But the grader is departing now
and you must piss off that baggage if you'd board it."
 
I followed like a lunatic
And, stumbling, dropped the trunk and all my reason.
"Get up!" they called "You'll make it now!"
I looked at all of this and muttered "Treason".
"Not so!" they cried "Not so at all.
Who makes the rules? Your paralytic reasons
are on the ground now, piss on them.
Most murder victims recognise their poison."

The grader was approaching now,
I left it all and ran again, my body was a furnace.
Clowns underneath my feet
were tripping me and howled "Please join our circus!"
I caught John by the trouser leg,
fell on the grader as it left the spinning forest.
“I do not understand," I wept;
the giant mouse smiled, "That's good, now you can join us.”
 
We sped into the stratosphere
above the filthy rags, above the mission,
above the choking parasites,
above the snowy temples and the prison.
I handed Kimbo John the words
I had written for the people without vision:
we fried them, served them, ate them all,
the four of us, it was my last decision.  

 
The old man cooked his leg for tea
and we all ate in bed;
we laughed until we could no more
on the Ghost Grader of Broken Head.