A Dog Starved - Augie March

Muddy and familiar tracks lead into the room where no-one goes,

only I know its true dimensions-

A hotel on a burning shore, derelict and furnished by the war

that no-one ever mentions

Give it all away, baby give it all away,

Nobody wants to hear about the price you pay,

You’re a dog starved.

Everybody knows their own, stick to their imaginary zones

to keep the information.

We only differ from the rat, given a stranger in the pack,

in how we improvise to tear the strips from him.

Give it all away, baby give it all away,

Ah, nobody cares about the price you pay,

You’re just a dog starved.

Now do you play the beating organ for attention

or to effect a gerrymander of the soul?

you hear the murmuring of mournful incantation

«Don't re-enrol, don’t re-enrol»

Today you only have to play along,

or make it seem as though you tried,

Or did I ever only play along?

Why would I?

Half an hour of rain, half an hour of sun,

In ode to violence the island sings its uncanny song

and I can only think I don’t belong, and is this oblivion,

Is this oblivion?

And so the pattern will repeat,

see the same worm at the same sheet,

where all desires seem to wane or taper.

You say no worst, now there is none,

Look how the palimpsest has won,

how father breaches son like brick through wallpaper…

Give it all away, baby give it all away,

Nobody wants to hear about the price you pay,

You’re a dog starved.

Give it all away, I’ve got to give it all away,

I’ve got to give it all away,

Just a dog starved.