Clay

A picture of a man with a rope laden head
Painted on a tablet of clay
Purchased in an alley in the town of Taormina
On a cloudless Sicilian day

We feed, we drink
Endeavour not to think
The Isola, addled lust
Slow intimations of dust

Not me, not me, that is not me, that is not my clay, not me…

George Johnston tilts in his abbreviated span
A young woman makes an entreaty
Thousands of miles and days from Hydra
On a dim, forsaken night in Sydney

To the rains exposed
Summer rains that open and close
To a soak, to a lunger
They keep getting younger and younger

Not me, not me, that is not me, that is not my clay, not me…

I have always felt like a sheep beneath the pelt of an ape
You can never get away there’s always some new affray to escape
The next ten years will be terrible

Not me, not me, that is not me, that is not my clay, not me…