Baxter's Mad Night

The other night biking home from Petone in the dark with the wind behind me and the tar seal slithering under my tires I remembered my favourite piece of Baxter, which I thought that I would share:

Getting Stoned on the Night Air

The long night fills the streets with fog
And the garages are wondblown tombs

Under the leaves of the plane trees where I run
Lifting and dropping my arms like a bird

This mad night - so peaceful, so dark and so open,
That the sea might easily flow over the land

Or the hills crumble like sand into the river
Since the town is a bed where the young and old sleep

In the sweetness of being, - man I don't need any
LSD to open the gate in the head

That leads to a land where men are birds
And Tanemahuta plays games with his children

I found my gate, carving turns through the park benches on Oriental Parade beneath the strings of lights on the Norfolk pines, Tangaroa lapping the rock walls beneath me. I am intrigued by this place and his constant moody influence upon it.