The Rider To The World's End

by Clive James and Pete Atkin

From a phrase by Lex Banning

You simply mustn't blame yourself — the days were perfect
And so were exactly what I was born to spoil
For I am the Rider to the World's End
Bound across the cinder causeway
From the furnace to the quarry
Through the fields of oil

And I left you with the sign of the Rider to the World's End
It was not the mark of Zorro
Written sharply on your forehead with a blade
Just a way of not turning up tomorrow
And of phonecalls never made

My time with you seemed readymade to last for always
And so was predestined to be over in a flash
For I am the Rider to the World's End
Bound across the fields of oil
Through the broken-bottle forest
To the plains of ash

And I left you with the sign of the Rider to the World's End
It was not the ace of diamonds
Or the death's-head of the Phantom on your jaw
Just a suddenly-relaxing set of knuckles
Never rapped against a door

You were more thoughtful for and fond of me than I was
And so were precisely what I can never trust
For I am the Rider to the World's End
Bound across the plains of ashes
To the molten-metal valleys
In the hills of dust

Note (from Collected Poems)

The title line is a tip of the hat to the late Lex Banning, a palsied poet of Sydney’s Downtown Push whom I met briefly and still admire. (The very pretty Edwards & Shaw edition of his only collection Apocalypse in Springtime is in the bookcase before me as I compose this note.) He once wrote that a row of men fishing with rods looked like illustrations from Euclid. I spent a lot of time wondering how he thought of that. Luckily, in those days, I still had time to burn. The narrator of the lyric is cursing himself for his own unreliability. Feckless men when young often believe that a confession absolves them.