Thin Captain Crackers

Augie March

Here on the hill above the settlement, the buildings are talking
A tower to a terrace says the word's on the street, the dead are walking...

The brows are arched of the mews across the street
By a pale ochre light are made out heavy reliefs
Where all your dreams are borrowed all your senses are thieves
And Ned Kelly won't ride past your window despite the freeze on your disbelief

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked through the center of the town
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown, he's been too long underground

"I see," said a blind builder to his deaf daughter as he picked up his hammer and saw, "if blood is thicker than water why'd you dress in the dress that you wore?"

The blind are drawn by a blank curiosity
(Don't bring 'em up...)
Drawn on mirrors where windows used to be (if you can't put 'em down)

Some people might say "My desire's not the captain of me!"
And Red Barry might fly from his pedestal at night to spook the
University...

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked through the center of the town
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown, he's been too long underground

O tailor my bones what need new clothes but the lower half loves
What the upper half loathes, I could get around like an intellectual I
Suppose, wearing the highs with the lows
But I'd sooner sing these doleful drones by barcoo dog and
Lagerphones, but my hand don't write when a feather it holds, it hangs like a wren with its neck wrung, as did the bells in my quasi commode where I have to shift my head to see where my pillow goed, some mornings I wake up by the side of the road
Bringing it up for the gutter
After putting it down for the crowd?

I said I would arrive in the capital?
After chuckin' outside the St. Augustine's purple parish hall?
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
And you know I can't