Use Me While You Can

There's a black and white crow on the back of a two toned sheep

in a field of broken yellow stalks

below looming cliffs

high above the plain little grey houses

blend with giant jagged boulders

and pale weathered stumps

life in the ghost of the bush

wind whips the acacias and strange forked palms

that cluster around the water hole

suddenly, out of the blowing sand

a milk-white camel appears

turbaned rider, blue robe billowing,

bounces with the shambling trot

wears a sword and a rifle on his back

and hanging from his neck a transistor radio

you blink and like ghosts, they're gone

under the wan disk of sand-masked sun, a woman grins;

spits expertly into the path of a struggling black beetle six feet away

hoists her water bucket onto her head and strides off up the trail



Sun a steel ball glowing

behind endless blowing sand

Sun a steel ball glowing

dust of fallen empires slowly flowing through my hands

Use me while you can



Pearl held in black fingers

is the moon behind dry trees

Pearl held in black fingers

Bird inside the rib cage is beating to be free

Use me while you can



I've had breakfast in New Orleans, dinner in Timbuktu

I've lived as a stranger in my own house too

Dark hand waves in lamplight

Cowrie shell patterns change

And nothing will be the same again



Bullet in a sand storm

Looking for a place to land

Bullet in a sand storm

Full heart beats an empty one

In the deck they dealt to man

Use me while you can

Use me while you can