The Sick Bag Song Read online

  Working is the why of work.

  •

  I lie on my bed, in the Bowery Hotel, New York City

  My Muse’s decollated head, nestled in my lap,

  Going lap, lap, lap, while I think of Sharon Olds,

  Who wrote the best fellatio poems ever put to the page.

  She writes lots of other great things as well.

  Leonard Cohen had a shot in ‘Chelsea Hotel’ and of course,

  Lou’s ‘Sister Ray’ and Auden’s porn-yawn, ‘The Platonic Blow’,

  But none comes close to the dazzling Sharon Olds.

  This is how the night unfolds. I peer through the crack

  In Sharon Olds’ closet with my sick bag song ready to blow.

  I could only say that it was nice and I told my Muse so.

  •

  Later, I throw my Bowery window wide.

  Up in the far right corner of the sky,

  A rain cloud shaped like Elvis’ severed head,

  Cries its salt. And all across New York City

  It pours beaded curtains of dewdrop jewels,

  And rivers of ordinary love songs wash down

  The gutters and fill the birdbaths and fountains

  And the swimming pools. And from the bar below,

  Nina Simone pounds the elephant ivory,

  The Canadian maple and the strangling wire,

  While up and down the hotel halls, the singing skeleton

  Of Karen Carpenter glides and calls.

  And as Roy Orbison deeply mines for cut diamonds

  Of sorrowed sound, we begin to see a ghastly pattern!

  Karen Dalton dangles from the rings of Saturn.

  Hank Williams tilts to the side in the back

  Of a powder-blue Cadillac, and Lou Reed’s face

  Appears on a napkin in a bar in Lower Manhattan.

  Let the world know they worked to the end with love.

  For there are those, poor things, who never start.

  Let the world know they knew the why of goodbye,

  That in love we often must depart.

  Yes, in love we often must depart.

  We will drown, poor things, in tears tonight,

  But I’ve got to get an early start,

  To Detroit on a Delta flight.

  In Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport,

  A great wind blew apart the storage room that held

  The Delta Air Lines sick bag supply. This is true.

  And borne up by that great wind, they flew,

  Those thousands of sick bags,

  Like a host of paper-winged angels,

  Over the breathtaking, bankrupt inner city of Detroit.

  Please, do not forget me!

  Pleaded the deserted megalopolis by the river.

  We are the winged emissaries of God!

  Do not despair! You will not be forgotten!

  In time, everyone will take up residence inside you.

  Please, do not forget me!

  Implored the fugitive man, hiding in the hotel.

  We are the winged emissaries of God!

  Prepare yourself! We will not forget you!

  We have come to bear you back home.

  Please, do not forget me!

  Cried the shivering boy on the train tracks.

  We are the winged emissaries of God!

  Do not fear! You will not be forgotten! Listen!

  You will stand on the edge and think you are alone,

  But you are not alone.

  All history is fixed to your ankle, all memory,

  All family and friends, all enemies,

  All politicians and decision-makers,

  All businesspersons,

  All masters and teachers –

  They will hang like grand pianos from your heels,

  But slow your breath, and with boldness take the first step.

  Fall over the precipice with the whole world weighted on,

  And you will see.

  You will soar on your brave sick bag wings!

  It will be difficult but you will rise!

  But be warned! You will be judged and judged harshly,

  But only by those who dared not leap.

  They will sit around and say, that traitor, that fucking poser,

  Look at him! Who does he fucking think he is?

  But you are none of these things.

  You are a beautiful leaper,

  Trailing ribbons of joy and gratitude

  Around a limitless sun.

  •

  In the car park outside the Masonic Temple, I smoke with my hatless driver, and later drive aimlessly around the city, and later still, stand on the Ambassador Bridge and watch the setting sun ignite the majestic and indifferent river.

  A familiar voice says,

  The Grosse Point billionaire ‘Matty’ Moroun owns this bridge. It is the only privately owned border crossing between the United States and Canada. Even so it cost the fucking taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. But the view from up here at night is awesome!

  The black girl in the stars-and-stripes mini-skirt smiles at me and puts her foot on the barrier, her toes curling around the rail. I notice she has two maple leaves, like red handprints, stencilled on the back of her skirt.

  You again, I say. What are you doing?

  I’m flying, she says. Wanna come?

  I stare down at the dark, muddy water below.

  I said, You’re not flying, you’re falling. There is a subtle difference in outcome.

  Oh yeah? And what do you think you are doing?

  I look down at the city again. From here the city resembles a severed head, incinerated and discarded by the side of the river; its cavernous eye sockets are empty, bundles of dead nerves dangle from its neck, its shattered mouth gapes, a few desolate wires hang from its stark, scorched skull and, suddenly and incomprehensibly and so foreign to my body I could weep, I feel my heart expand with what I can only describe as a sensation of hope. Is there a word for that? Hope in the face of great calamity?

  What am I doing? I don’t know, I say. Stalling, I guess.

  Sounds about right, she says.

  I am working though, I reply.

  The girl laughs and says, Yeah, right.

  The girl stands up on the rail, the muscles in her brown legs contracting beneath her skirt that now flaps like a flag in the wind. The lights of the bridge loop through the night sky above her. She holds onto the girder and presses her young body into the wind.

  It’s so fucking beautiful up here!

  You’re telling me, I say and turn away. I’m crying now.

  See you later, I say. Take care.

  I start to walk back down the bridge to where the black SUV sits idling. My driver is a dark shadow in the front seat. I wipe my streaming eyes with my sleeve. The girl, balanced so perilously on the barrier that she appears to be dancing, calls out to me, across the night.

  Hey you! It’s probably time you went home, don’t you think? Isn’t there someone waiting for you? That’s the true and righteous work, right there! How about it? You know! Suck it in and take the leap!

  Then in the blink of an eye she is gone.

  •

  The Delta Air Lines sick bag helpfully instructs:

  ‘Call the stewardess for bag disposal.’

  The Sick Bag Song is full of all that I love and loathe,

  And all is inside myself. It is so full now it’s gonna burst!

  Call the stewardess for bag disposal!

  Then I can begin again and tomorrow leap differently!

  Ding! Dong! I alert the stewardess to my need!

  Ding! Dong! My sick bag is ready to blow!

  Ding! Dong! The plane’s chemotrail is a fucking scandal!

  Ding! Dong! The stewardess has leapt from the plane!

  The man who has just walked on stage at the Sony Centre in Toronto does not realise that he is not a man at all.

  He is the dream of a boy standing on a
shuddering railway track.

  The man and the boy dream each other.

  They remember each other.

  The man reaches out and takes hold of the boy and, hand in hand, they step into the spotlight. They walk themselves to the world’s edge. The engine of sound is deafening. The earth shudders beneath their feet. They look down into the cosmic depths below.

  •

  We have traversed borders.

  We have passed through regenerated inner cities, through inner cities in the process of regeneration, and dying inner cities.

  We have moved across the land, over wheat fields, mustard fields, corn fields, bean fields and fields of sunflowers.

  We have travelled along great free-flowing bodies of water – the Cumberland, the Ohio, the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the Milwaukee, the St Croix, the Mississippi, the South Platte, the Elbow and the Bow, the Saskatchewan, the Fraser, the Duwamish, the Willamette, the San Francisco, the Los Angeles, the Colorado, the Potomac, the Schuylkill, the Hudson, the Detroit, the Delaware, the Don and the St Lawrence Rivers.

  We have become lost in cities of great architectural beauty. We have kept to the shadows and at night allowed ourselves to be seen. We have looked out and marvelled at distant skylines.

  We have communed in masonic temples, public parks, 700-acre farms, destination theatres, Spanish Baroque style theatres, French and Italian Baroque style theatres, Italian Renaissance style theatres and theatres in the Spanish Gothic style. We have communed in Neoclassical style theatres made out of Alabama limestone, theatres in the Renaissance Revival style, vaudeville theatres, movie palaces renovated into multiplexes, performing arts, culture and community facilities, Unification churches, concert halls in the Moorish Revival style and vast open-air auditoriums.

  We have driven thousands of miles in buses, vans, cabs, limousines and suburban utility vehicles. We have ridden trains, trams and trolley cars. We have walked down teeming peopled streets and streets empty of people.

  We have flown through the sky on British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and sat at the departure lounges of Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport, Denver International Airport, Edmonton International Airport, Portland International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, LAX, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, JFK and the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

  Our food has come from artisan bakers, organic butchers, fish mongers, fast food outlets, taco stands, chicken shacks, salad bars, sushi conveyor belts, pizza boxes, all-night diners, five-star restaurants, road stops, food courts, farmers’ markets,

  in-house catering, minibars, hotel breakfast rooms, coffee franchises, delicatessens, restaurants, bars, burger joints and hotdog vendors. We have received room service.

  We have sat in domed lobbies, designed after the Pantheon in Rome and built from 700 tons of pink marble. We have sat backstage in rank and desolate dressing rooms.

  We have visited television studios and radio stations without any recollection of doing so.

  We have lain in a bed in the Sheraton Hotel, Nashville, and stared at the ceiling. We have gazed in the mirror of a bathroom in the InterContinental Hotel, Kansas City, and we have vomited shellfish in a toilet bowl in the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis. We have written out our dry-cleaning lists in the Edmonton Fairmont Hotel Macdonald and the Ritz-Carlton, Washington. We have masturbated in the Bowery Hotel in New York City and the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood. We have sat in the rose garden in the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco and chain-smoked. We have been propositioned in the lobby of the W Hotel, Austin. We have watched all-night TV in the Four Seasons in Denver. We have been manicured in the spa at the Shangri-La in Vancouver. We have watched PornHub in 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, and also the Nines in Portland. We have stolen the bathrobes from the Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia. We have won large amounts of money at the casino in the MGM Grand Hotel in Detroit and we have ridden the elevators to the penthouse of the Trump in Toronto.

  We have been tended to by concierges, bellboys, Asian maids, Hispanic maids, African-American maids and maids of indeterminate ethnic origin, uniformed doormen, dry-cleaning services, turn-down artists, dentists, doctors, hypnotists, homeopaths, pharmacists, drug dealers, lawyers, agents, shake-down artists, barmen, waitresses, fry cooks, Michelin chefs, receptionists, managers, personal assistants, assistants to personal assistants, assistants to assistants to personal assistants, publicists, promoters, production managers, insurance brokers, accountants, marketing managers, make-up artists, hairdressers, photographers, cameramen, security guards, bodyguards, non-uniformed doormen, travel agents, pilots, co-pilots, air hostesses, ground staff, luggage handlers, lift drivers, bus drivers, cab drivers, limo drivers, squeegee merchants, drum technicians, guitar technicians, road crews, side-of-stage guys, monitor engineers, front-of-house guys, lighting guys, merchandising guys, road managers and assistant road managers, all to be here with you –

  North America, tonight!

  We are responding to your vibrations as they electrify the tracks.

  •

  In Nashville,

  You were the accelerated rhythm of a small boy’s heart.

  In Manchester,

  You were a blue plastic sheet that hid a headless corpse.

  In Louisville,

  You were a black hummingbird on a suspension bridge.

  In Kansas City,

  You were a pile of bison skulls waiting to be ground into fertiliser.

  In Milwaukee,

  You were an inky, screaming reflection trapped in a hotel mirror.

  In Minneapolis,

  You were a concrete pylon turning into a glorious column of light.

  In Denver,

  You were the entrails of a dismantled walkie-talkie.

  In Calgary,

  You were a cake of pine sap trapped in a block of ice.

  In Edmonton,

  You were a white she-dragon drawing her last loving breath.

  In Vancouver,

  You were the demented face of a laughing poet.

  In Seattle,

  You were a miniature Shiva floating in a galvanised water trough.

  In Portland,

  You were a sun-faced train thundering along the tracks.

  In San Francisco,

  You were a drugstore beetle in a bowl of Ginsberg’s Grape Nuts.

  In Los Angeles,

  You were a gloop of ectoplasm spurting through the orange air.

  In Austin,

  You were a Texan girl’s honeysuckle, dewdrop sex.

  In New Orleans,

  You were Windex Pete’s battered gravestone washboard.

  In Washington,

  You were a valued item of misplaced laundry.

  In Philadelphia,

  You were the autographed inner thigh of a glum teenager.

  In New York,

  You were a man vomiting snowdrops into an airline sick bag.

  In Detroit,

  You were an ejaculating water feature in Wayne County Airport.

  In Toronto, here, right now, each of you are changing form.

  You are becoming the mother of the nine Muses, Mnemosyne.

  Mnemosyne means memory. You are becoming memory.

  Please remember me. Please do not forget me. Please.

  And in Montreal, tomorrow, come, all of you

  And you will see a small and vanishing god,

  Lying in shattered pieces, by a moonlit lake.

  You will be the remembering moon.

  You will be the remembering lake.

  So, until then –

  •

  The man who is walking on stage at the Sony Centre in Toronto does not realise that he is not a man at all.

  He is the dream of a boy, with tears in his eyes, standing frozen on a shuddering railway track.

  The man and the boy dream each
other.

  They remember each other.

  The man approaches the boy and reaches towards him.

  Hand in hand, they turn and step into the roaring light.

  The sound of the faceless, shrieking train is deafening.

  They walk themselves slowly to the world’s edge.

  The ground beneath them shudders and quakes.

  Each understands that the other may be forgotten.

  Each understands that the other may die.

  The universe holds its breath.

  •

  Together and alone, they leap.

  Outside the old Hotel St Paul,

  The band all hug and say goodbye,

  Then I make my way to Lake Montreal,

  And beneath a wood of silver maple trees,

  I watch a glow rise off the lake,

  As the night begins to fall.

  And by that luminescent lake,

  And under the silver maple trees,

  I give my sick bag a gentle shake,

  And all those awful, raging hearts fall out.

  And one by one they run away,

  I dial you on my phone.

  And as the moon lies down upon the lake,

  I sit upon the forest floor,

  And under the silver maple trees,

  I know in truth we are not alone,

  Then I fold my sick bag into four,

  Ring. Ring. Click. Hello?

  •

  I am coming home.

  Nick Cave, 2014

  The Nine Ways of Undying Gratitude

  Thanks to my mother

  Thanks to the band

  Thanks to the crew

  Thanks to the audience