Godzilla High

 
Crunkt considers how to begin again, the dull pain of his liver lending pause for thought.
How would it begin? Amidst reams of visa applications, foreign currency,
passport photos showing me what I’ve become in years
since I last looked back.
How would I step from the gangway,
feet pudgy with D.U.T, the husty’s conversation lingering,
a slow-acting hangover plied by her trade’s tools:
free grog, short skirts, easy chat and promises of always
elsewhere.
Would I remember how she talked about the job, mentioned
her drinking in the same breath as New York and September?
How would burden set in, between departure lounges and hotels?
Would Tokyo enter me as a consciousness,
attracted like a fridge to a magnet? What awaits? Awkward sex
in capsule hotels, cacoon faced girls, Hello Kitty massages, love hotels, Smacky e’s,
the drone of politics, another language, missile tests in Korea?
Hopeless nights looking for a human interest story that could become a drinking partner?
Will I learn racism isn’t uniquely Australian?
Just another story in a series of stories.
Whatever it is, it won’t stop this ageing body,
the overloaded boats setting off sunk off Jakarta,
the wars reported, the big hungers of grey men in grey suits carrying grey folders.
It won’t stop the sinking feeling setting in when another set of
faces behind wire appears on the tele.
Stepping from the Narita Express,
Crunkt recalls John Malkovich playing a killer on the plane over.
He claimed, ‘There is no mystery. We are simply every moment’
as another body slumped from his hand to the floor.
Shibuya crossing, it’s eleven-thirty, midnight, me.
Katakana, Hiragana and Kenji float off the buildings,
Seri play cartoon captions, breaking into English
He drifts with the swarm, the chirrup and growl of Japanese.
He misunderstands slowly. Dry streets ahead, the humidity
under the dancing image of a J-pop star, Gozilla high,
Crunkt feels his language thicken around him, a shell about to crack