Written for Black Harlequin in Sydney, 1991, not long after completing Gibson's Neuromancer.

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Like city neon,
garbled radio voices tuning in and out of white noise heaven.
Turning point. Transition.

I awoke!

A thin strip of blue, maybe ink, above each eye.
I sat up exhausted. What were they telling me?
My mind raced throughout body
expelling the mess of messages,
trails of fine fibre, translucent,
bunched here and there
emitting unknown codes -
something like the effect of morphine
seething skin,
muscle tissue
just enough to keep you conscious to the
neuromaze it carves out of the viscous dark.

A near empty sleeve of Adivans in my bag.
Too tempting.
I wanted a drugless sleep.
I'd enough beer in me to sink a canoe.
Earlier I couldn't stop pissing.
My dick kept dribbling and itching.
Some alchohol induced malfunction, perhaps?

I kept a wad of tissues stuffed in my pants
just in case.
I was disgusted!

In the late evening the Burdekin had been pathetic.
Packed with meat, lonely meat, empty bar for the
alchohol meat, uncultured meat,
head-but-sex meat. Dead meat!

Aboitair
Whaling Station
Butcher
Brazil

I remembered the Burdekin as I wiped the blue
from my forhead.
I was sick of the routine.
Sleep, shower, cafe, coffee, croissant,
move the car every hour till evening,
phone calls, note book, beer, beer, her face,
her eyes, her smells,
sleeping bag sleep...sleeping meat, dead meat.