Rings of Saturn
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Upside down and inside out and on all eights like a funnel web, like a black fly on the ceiling, skinny white haunches high and skyward and her black oily gash, crawling backwards across the carpet to smash all over everything her wet, black fur against the sun going down over the shops and the cars and the crowds and the town.
And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she does and this is what she is.
And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she does and this is what she is.
Her eyes that look at me through her rainy hair are two round holes where the air buckles and rushes in, her body moon-blue as a jellyfish, and I’m breathing deep and I’m there and I’m also not there and spurting ink over the sheets but she remains, completely unexplained or maybe I’m just too tongue-tied to drink it up and swallow back the pain. I thought slavery had been abolished, how come it’s gone and reared its ugly head again.
And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she does and this is what she is.
And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she is and this is what she does.
This is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
And this is what she does and this is what she is.
And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she does and this is what she is.
And now she’s jumping up with her leaping brain, stepping over heaps of sleeping children, disappearing and further up and spinning out again, up and further up she goes, up and out of the bed, up and out of the bed and down the hall where she stops for a moment and turns and says “Are you still here?” and then reaches high and dangles herself like a child’s dream from the ring of Saturn.
