Redgum
Your O.S. Trip
Your O.S. trip - it went just fine
Rome and Paris were divine
Sidewalk bars and cafes - quiche lorraine, red wine
I read in between the lines

The beggar children of Toledo that you said looked cute
As they stared through the dust and flies
I bet you felt like Jesus when you handed 'round the fruit
Did you feel the hunger in their eyes?

You're standing ten feet tall, you've been and seen it all
On your Cook's Grand Tour of Spring
With your Polaroids so shady, I'm surprised, my lady
That you saw anything

You swanned past the Reichstag to the Berlin Wall
In chiffon - Christian Dior
Gazing at the debris through electrified barbed wire
So grey - what an awful bore

You thought the border guards parading looked so picturesque
And their goose-stepping was so surreal
Did you have any conception of the blood between the stone
Did you notice that their guns were real?

You're standing ten feet tall, you've been and seen it all
On your Cook's Grand Tour of Spring
With your Polaroids so shady, I'm surprised, my lady
That you saw anything
The pallid youth sitting in the nightclub in Milan
Ran his fingers gently down your arm
With a cultivated innocence and calculated ease
You fed his vanity with Campari and charm

In your pensione next morning you reached out for your purse
And knew twenty dollars would suffice
A Latin lover's such a chic device
And such a bargain at the price

The demonstration met the army in Ommonia Square
Ten thousand voices filled the sky
The clump of rubber truncheons, jackboots in the groin
The streets of Athens ran with fire

It was beyond your comprehension from the Hilton poolside lounge
As you stared through the clouds of mace
Take comfort in your indignation, sip a Dubonnet
Wish the noisy rabble knew their place

The galleries were gorgeous, the postcards thirty francs
On your Cook's Grand Tour of Spring
With your Polaroids so shady I'm surprised, my lady
That you saw anything