nocturne

imagine a journey on a ship
and the ship is on fire
okay forget that you are floating
on clouds and you are a Hindu god
in the bushes off to the left something
is waiting for you and you are about to die

what does 'datejust' mean?

a man on a ship humiliates himself
he leaps on the table while drunk
and urinates in someone's soup
this is an old time steamer between
Liverpool and New York and your Mother
and he gets on stage and this is not
a Graham Greene novel—for some reason

Miles Davis is on this ship
and when the man starts urinating
in his soup he reaches up with fingers
almost each a foot long and takes him by the throat
pulls him down and says listen

but the man by now is too drunk and does not listen
he goes on to attack the captain who is looking
for ice and ought not to be assailed so

he shows his buttocks to the ladies in cabin 339
laughing as he does it oh life on a ship is such fun

but worst of all he sidles alongside the chaplain
who has by now spotted the ice and has no time to waste
hey you wanna do it he asks
not now not now says the chaplain

in the morning the man remembers little of this
but signals come in
by noon he knows enough
and something within him starts to die
his good intentions fail and he cannot
find it in him to venture on deck and apologise
to the other passengers

not that Miles wants an apology
Miles thinks he is a fuck and isn't interested today
in a fuck
while he rows through the bodies

the Purser's daughter's body was not violated
but the intentions had been clear enough
at 2am when he approached her bed
with suggestions of Jazz music

the man doesn't know how to return from this escapade
and he retires to his bunk
where he lies urinating in his own soup
buzzing like a kazoo

something has died in him from this confluence
of events
and he would rather now that he went down
with the ship
whose lights are even now going out

I have fucked up again he thinks
so profoundly this time
that though the ship sinks
I will lie here and mime
for you just can't keep doing
this pissing in soup
not if you want
to stay in the group

Miles sculls softly onward
imagine him there blowing and sculling
in the cold
nothing left
the Carpathia arriving hours later
asking
where's the president?
a great sea monster welling beneath
a m onkey a t the prow laughing its arse
off

oh just imagine the birth of Jazz on the frozen sea

little pixies in Elmo blue dancing everywhere
bears drowning on all sides coughing as they go
you ever see someone drown they cough then go quiet

but I love you you know I do

keep your hands off me

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