Brave, That Way

Saturday sees me
sticking a safety pin through my nose
and screaming myself hoarse
in a strip club
in a black pvc catsuit
I wasn't sure was worth the $15 the op shop was charging
in 2006

but I'm just not brave
in this particular way
haven't got the words to say
whatever it is that fills me

two tenor saxophones said it instead
in a distinct harmony
that drew the salt tears
that I couldn't will
at the right time
rehearsing another's pain
on another day.

Language is so inadequate,
even melody is,
chords comes close
but it's so mercurial,
this meaning we chase
that slips and slides
and seemingly impossibly
freezes when we need it most.

If i could paint
perhaps colours could
fathom this
in layers and textures

I need to build something
big enough to show
this enormity

drain the ocean and make a stage of the sea floor
to play out this story

the one that comes in dreams
and day dreams
that seems right there
at my finger tips

but evaporates before I can catch it
and transpose it
into the right key
and sing it into the wind
to waft it's way
to wherever you are in the world.

I'm mute, today
not brave
that way.