Augie March: This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers

We will adjust to this new condition of living like a man with his entrails now out him not in
After certain techniques of torture accustoms himself to a new condition of living...train.
Thoughtful godless men find god in them at the age of twenty-five
but in a year death gains favor and they think themselves the more alive,
You'll find them in the loose caboose where the pills are kept and the stupid juice,
This one has a sleeping wheel, this one has a willing noose
- Onward and on to the ends of love, pricked vanity, habit and ruse.
Onward and on to a premature silence where death finds too much use.

Fifteen year old whores in training, eyes a'batting, arms a'flailing, skin aflame, this fire-fanning express,
If you're on board amazement follows fear and rounded by dismay
it takes the corner into the day after today which is a father's sorrow
- Onward and on to the ends of meanness where kindness is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, awakening finds us too sensual beings from birth -
("I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry lady, I am sorry, I'm sorry lady...I'm sorry")...train.

Pods of wealthy blonde gobbets with red-rind eyes
getting pecked at by the heroin sparrows of the western skies,
It may be married to the tracks but this train flies and it's taking no passengers.
"We'll stand on his hand, that's how you pin your man, we'll smash him from Preston to Epworth!"
Onward and on to the ends of reason where malice is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, this strange-wrought bird, onwards and over the black coffee earth,
Onward and on, this laughing train to the ends of its low, low mirth...

Where the media make it with the media whores,
Lady Time minces man-meat with her contract claws
for a barbecue with the veterans of the talkback wars
in the outback palace...of one John Laws.

O we will adjust to this new condition of living
like a sailor with his hands tied behind his back
imprisoned after sailing into foreign waters, unawares,
accustoms himself to a new condition of living.
But a shadow falls between this hurtling intent and its realisation
for its government is rotten and therefore its civilisation
which is certainly taking no passengers...train...