Jungle Ride - Fish

The car finally burned out around three.

The blue beacon of a silent patrol car

threw new shadows into the street turning the window into a flickering monitor

screen

I’d seen the kids torch the vehicle before I left on a nightly surfing run to a

cybersex site in Chile.

It wasn’t as if they were getting rid of prints,

everyone knew it was them.

They didn’t give a shit.

They just wanted to see

the flames, to throw a bit of light on a situation

I looked up the hill at the spread of the estate.

The streetlights glowed like

campfires of an army on the eve of battle or fireflies trapped in the canopy of

an immense jungle

Jungle, young mental jungle

Here in the jungle, in the jungle

Where men don’t cry and husbands lie and you never have to justify a kickin'

When mates jump in to save your skin if a chib is ever pulled out in a square go

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it’s over

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it ends

Oh here she comes round again, here she comes round again

Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes

The glazed eyes of porcelain clowns stare skywards at clouds of goldfish madly

circling their own silent plastic worlds, high above the children who stuff

ping pong balls like pills in the mouths of slowly rotating heads

Intentions true as the arrow’s flight

Wins a cuddly toy to while away an evening

Outside this ring of light he’ll claim his prize

She’ll sport lovebites just to prove to all he’s been there

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it’s over

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it ends

Oh here she comes round again, here she comes round again

Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes

I crept along the edges of the parade, staying glued to the shadows where the

dogs slept uneasily on their chains under the caravans

I followed the drums and the pulsing light until I came across a clearing in

the centre of which was the attraction

And then I saw her, an angel in a chariot, her hair trailing behind her like

the tail of a comet.

And I knew that she was mine.

I knew that we were destined

to leave this place together.

We didn’t belong to this carnage and the

knowledge of escape was the only thing keeping me sane

But for now I could only watch and wait for this was an arena I dare not enter

On the rim of the machine the animals had gathered

Big cats at a waterhole waiting on the weak and wounded to stagger into their

territory so they could exercise some violence and feed their starving

reputations

No climbdown in this standoff with the world

They already know that they can never win the war but in this battle they’re

gonna do some damage

The pack will follow the stragglers into the dawn.

Young mental jungle

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it’s over

Jungle ride, jungle ride, tell me when it ends

Jungle ride, jungle ride, tell me when it ends

Here she comes round again, here she comes round again

Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes