Born on seven continents
One hundred and ninety-eight countries
All at once

Cigarette between his finger and his thumb
Four thousand years of human history
24 rotations round the sun

Played a page of Nero’s orchestra
And then he sang a song
It was the Universal Aria

And he preached to a mahogany tabletop
On which sat a plate of ordinary figs
And the sun rose on a blonde home
Giving homage to a temple and a smile of straight white teeth
Adorned in a long green jacket
And a viewing of La Haine and a roadtrip round the world
And I survive on an Ethiopian wallet and the lessons I was taught
By a boy with a badge in his heart and a love for reform
With reformation in his heart

The light within his window means he’s home
For a break
From overtaking Western ministries

Eight thousand kilometres to a surgery
For the Aboriginal Race
Then to the national Parliament to end an era of disgrace

And my memory recalls a certain late-night shopping trip
Spent in a parking lot mall across three names
And every day on the 86 line I pass a government dump
Testament to a state crime
And everyday when I pass that land
The building where he lived gets knocked down in my mind
And every time I’m on Swanston Street
I remember the crowds and the blonde’s fist in the march

For everything he hated
And everything lost
And everyone he knew this country’d forgot

For everything jaded
And everything decayed
For the 21st century delayed

For fighting at the steeple and for
Fighting at the house
For fighting in the streets at the mind of a mouse
And the last time I saw him at a house under siege
And the last time we spoke eating duck with the Queen
With a fight to the end in a straight jacket ward
Breaking his heart every day against an Australian Court

And I’ll cry every day for the rest of my life
I’ll miss you when I’m old
I still think of you at night