TILL THE LAST TRICKLE

1 - JR - And how goes the camera? - The computer? - Hope they're working for you somehow - And I wonder whether you're doing any reviews - Or have left that malarkey behind - There is a pizza here that tastes as if it has been mysteriously transported straight from the best wood fired oven in Italy - Served by dark haired, dark eyed slender beauties - Kind, gentle - So gentle and kind - Susie is better off - For me monogamy at best has only ever had the slightest of holds anyway - Do you remember those girls when we were about 13 or 14? - Nicola something or another with me - Siobhan something or another with you - It was an Irish name at least - Even though she sounded as if she was mere steps away from ascending to the english throne - God we thought we were in love - At first -And I suppose in a way we were - I don't know about you but I felt in some kind of love with each of their friends too - Yes even Siobhan - There were about seven or eight girls in that group and I desired them all - And listen, I don't think much has changed

2 - No I don't think much has changed at all - There is an older man here at the hostel who says women will always be a torment till the last trickle of testosterone has left and packed up for new climes - Jesus it's a wonder I ever got married at all - Growing from a boy I would observe various men who had sworn loyalty and dedication and who knows what else to the woman beside them - White white white - At various functions - In hotels - Embassies - Wherever - And even before I first needed to shave they struck as belonging to either one of two kinds, as a result of marriage - Or if they were particularly unfortunate, both - Drunks or Idiots - And so I swore eternal bachelorhood - And yet - And yet, here I am - Stuck on the underside of the world - Looking for something likely no longer there - Likely gone, gone for good - Good

3 - Good - She's better off - Besides everything else, I got tired of terrorism too late - What in the end does it matter who did what to whom? - What the hell was I looking for? - Some secret - Likely in the end some silly secret - And then all of a sudden it's too late - Your world, your world in the end evaporates - And yet all the same I can't help but wonder what has become of my papers - Those I sent you - Way back when - And I wonder whether you took a stab at translating any of the ones I never got to - I mean, if so, you could have made Mr Dunnerly proud - Wherever he is - He was a good teacher - He was a good man - Melbourne's mighty cold - A different kind of cold - Wait, there's a Sudanese cab driver I know trying to catch my eye - Later - LA