Soundtrack for Passengers #8

London Calling

 

There is no idea of order in Key West
Just traffic jams and queers that are here
And the idea of a waste land is nonsense
Almost every single corner has a souvenir
And if college kids can’t get a reference
About Matthew Arnold staring at the sea
Full of despair, they can hear the Smiths’
The Queen Is Dead (even though she isn’t
And maybe get an idea. The probability
That the Stooges, Sex Pistols, and Clash
Are more relevant today than Robert Frost
Is equivalent to Picasso over Rockwell
Which is as clear to me as any passerby
Though relatively speaking, we’ve all died
From what we know of black holes, little
Will be remembered of how Souxie sang
How you sold me a shark tooth necklace
How Hemingway left his six-toed cats
Pauline and the boys, how Tennessee lost
A bet to Truman Capote and Gore Vidal
How even I heard the song she sang to me
I mean the sea, where, chances are, we all
Swam with all our worn-out arms, so when
I came back to the blue hotel, tired as hell
And put on my Black Market Clash. I fell
Into a long, deep sleep, waking with sweat
Dripping from my back, a vague memory
Of the fights I had with my wife in Texas
Whom I left as soon as I realized that she
Like me, wanted to see much more than
We had ever accumulated together. Since
She couldn’t shut up about Mommy Porn
And ignored everything but text messages
I wanted to rewind. So I sold my stuff
And flew to Miami and drove to Key West
Maybe to see the world in a grain of sand
Or to find I don’t really care about tattoos
On naked breasts as much as I imagined
“Daddy was a bank robber” was playing
Through my head, and I didn’t want to think
About anything she said, I decided to sink
Into another reverie, how it takes money
To live like you don’t have any. I gave
My last good years, not to her, but an idea
So Jackson Pollock’s dead. We start again
But what does that look like? You, a cashier
In a beach shop, Cuba hung like the moon
Two fossils falling in love, poor little fools
Watching the tide roll away beside a pier
Not caring about old folks like Jeff Koons
A while back we fucked in front of a mirror
In a relatively cheap flat in London
My old wife I mean. She reminds me of
You. These foolish things left us flat broke
And I got her pregnant without a condom
It wasn’t that I didn’t have one. But she
Like the sea, needed my touch, my love
And that’s how life begins. My closest friends
Meant nothing to me then. I had no sense
Of home, London, or anywhere, just an
Idea of longing for what I couldn’t reach
So each time we rolled into the next town
I felt like I had let an old friend down
And all I guess to wind up on a beach
Like the one we’re on tonight, you and I
Saying the same shit we don’t even mean
As a way of feeling comfortable with our
Loneliness and lack of accomplishments
To convince ourselves we’ll make it big
Because everyone wants to be famous
And we both know we’re like all the rest
But if we could play history on repeat
Hear our failures and improve, it would be
Like a reggae song without Bob Marley
Probably better to move on to disco beats
Which fade into the night until we sleep
Without remembering, simply swimming
Like schools of fish drifting in a current
Like stupid academies where all we learn
Is that to break from the old we must earn
Our own broken bones and tattered hopes
And let the dead bury the dead, knowing
We will soon be buried with them. Only
Then will we be able to sing with the sea,
Deep calling out to deep, the ancient cities
Swelling up again. For now, let’s go out
And I’ll buy you an ice cream. We’ll see
A movie on the strip, and when we’re ready
We’ll buy a house, clean, mow the lawn
Your firm tits and me with a big hard on
We can fuck till fuck all and make babies
Someone else’s songs playing in the waves
Another civilization in chaos, pursuing
The same ways of expression with different
Hands. All I’ve lost and gained, you (and she
The sea, all calling from the grave to a city
With no memory, only a small, faint longing.
 

May 5, 2012

Listen to Wallace Stevens read”The Idea of Order at Key West” while reading the poem.