For Rui Boy

Memorializing Still-Living Children

“Innocent victim of a blinded alley”

Wasted and wounded, it ain’t what the moon did
Got what I paid for now
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You’ll go a-waltzing Matilda with me

I’m an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English and everything’s broken
And my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You’ll go a-waltzing Mathilda with me

Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab’s parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open
And I’m down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill’s I staggered, you buried the dagger
Your silhouette window light
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You’ll go a-waltzing Matilda with me

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I’ve kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinaman and the cold-blooded signs
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

No, I don’t want your sympathy
The fugitives say that the streets aren’t for dreaming now
And these manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

And you can ask any sailor and the keys from the jailer
And the old men in wheelchairs know
That Matilda’s the defendant, she killed about a hundred
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Mathilda
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

And it’s a battered old suitcase in a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, you know the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers
The night watchman flame keepers
And goodnight, Matilda too

Tom Waits
Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)