This monologue appears at the beginning of the ‘Dead Flag Blues’.
It comes from ‘incomplete movie about jail’, an unfinished film that Efrim Menuck wrote a long time ago and has been working ever since.
The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheeland the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicidesand a dark wind blows the government is corruptand we’re on so many drugswith the radio on and the curtains drawn
we’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machineand the machine is bleeding to death
the sun has fallen downand the billboards are all leeringand the flags are all dead at the top of their poles
it went like this:the buildings tumbled in on themselvesmothers clutching babies picked through the rubbleand pulled out their hair
the skyline was beautiful on fireall twisted metal stretching upwardseverything washed in a thin orange haze
I said: “kiss me, you’re beautiful – these are truly the last days”
you grabbed my hand and we fell into itlike a daydream or a fever
we woke up one morning and fell a little further down – for sure it’s the valley of death
I open up my walletand it’s full of blood.
x – x