Nocturne (2010/16)

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
urinates in someone's soup
this an old time steamer between
Liverpool and New York (and your Mother)
gets on stage and this is not
a Graham Greene novel

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

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

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

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

morning the man remembers little 
but signals come 
by noon he knows enough
within him starts to die
good intentions fail he cannot
venture on deck 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 2 am when he approached her bed
with suggestions of Jazz 

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

something has died in him from this events
would rather now he went down

whose lights are even now 

I have fucked up again 
so profoundly 
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 soft
imagine him there blow
in the cold
nothing left
Carpathia hours later
ask
where's the president?
a great sea monster beneath
a monkey at the prow laugh its arse

oh the birth of Jazz on the frozen sea

little pixies in Elmo blue 
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 

something went wrong
all over frozen wrong
don't pick me up
play on monkeyface, drown

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