In January 2008 I posted a piece about ‘my own private America’ called Go West. It concerned the evolution of my romantic relationship with the United States from childhood fantasy into adult encounter. It traced its development from a ‘50s austerity Britain perception of the States as glamorous Shangri-La, through my absorption in its cultural and musical heritage up to my first visit in the early ‘90s, slipping over the border from British Columbia into Washington.

Not included with the post was a poem, Driving To America. Written in one 20-minute session in a car park while the others trawled a huge factory outlet in Bellingham, it emerged stylistically as an affectionate parody of Ferlinghetti. In content, it constitutes a sort of poetic version of Go West.

But, whilst having something of an affection for it, I’ve never been able to take it very seriously, probably because of the dominance in of style over content. Additionally, it will be for those unacquainted with its specific musical and literary references, an almost wilfully obscurantist piece.

Whatever, as we all say nowadays. Here it is in a new draft, some significant revisions having been made.

DRIVING TO AMERICA

From that first bright prairie morning
at the frontier of my days
I have been
driving to America

From the flock and horsehair saddle
of a South London cinema seat –
Jimmy Stewart shrugging on
a sheepskin coat in
Where The River Bends –
I have been driving to America.

Through the canyons
and the arroyos.
and the sagebrush trails
of a suburban garden,
lost in the folds of
of a bright red cowboy shirt
(man-size, a prairie of cotton)
and squinting from beneath the brim
of Grandpa’s panama,
I have been
driving to America.

Through the longing
for that golden Lone Star pistol,
hinged like for real before
the trigger-guard, with a cylinder
that actually revolved
and a hammer you could cock,
in a tasselled yellow holster
with a silver horseshoe buckle,
hanging low, I have been
driving to America.

Through the pages
of the yellow paperbacks
that ranged along my windowsill
(Triggernometry: a Gallery of Gunfighters,
Desperate Men: the James Gang
and Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp:
Frontier Marshall),
through their dusty streets
and through the batwing doors
of their saloons
and in the cool dark
of their livery stables,
the bright noon heat of their
desert days, and in the cordite reek
of their gun battles (the OK Corral,
the Lincoln County Cattle Wars,
Jack McCall shooting Hickock in the back
in Deadwood, South Dakota), I have been
driving to America.

Then through the skidpan hiss
of blue and purple-labelled 78s
(London American and Capitol),
the jump-jive scamper of Gene Vincent’s
Bluecaps or the thick fat gumbo
beat of New Orleans – I’m Walking,
Blueberry Hill, Let the Four Winds Blow,
or the Macon, Georgia scream of Little Richard,
calling out the flat-top cats and dungaree dolls,
or the hound dog longing of
One Night (With You) – Presley’s eyes
sleepy with lust, the lip flickering
into a sneer…

Then later through the rattling snares
and sneezing cymbals in the blare
of Ory’s blue trombone, white-heat
of Armstrong’s cornet; then
the crosstown traffic clamour
of Gillespie, Parker, Monk;
the high water, muddy river surge
of Mingus, Jimmy Knepper, Roland Kirk;
and the basement pulse of Howling Wolf
and Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy,
under the Clarkdale and Chicago stars;
B.B., Albert, Freddie King, rocking
with eyes tight shut in front
of a herd of nodding saxes;
through the tumbleweed, alfalfa,
cottonfield and city cellar, intersection
chaos of its music, I have been
driving to America.

On the flatbed back
of a farmboy’s truck, heading south
from Iowa to Denver, Colorado,
Montana Slim, Sal Paradise
beside me on the dream-freeway
to Anywhere, USA;
through mirror shades, the smoke
from a chewed cigar, blue diesel
haze, the silver powder of a starry night
or the yellow flare of what might be
a prairie moon, I have been
driving to America…

...

And now, anonymous, unshadowed,
hidden in the lee
of a southbound truck,
I wait at the border.
Five black Canada geese
pull themselves across the sky,
quitting the mudbanks
of the Fraser River
for the deep-rift gorges of
the long Columbia.  A high sun
straddles the 49th and through
its dancing tarmac mist we roll
like conquerors who have crossed
immeasurable distances and now awaken
in clear light on the real highway,
driving to America.

pic: from: http://www.dustydavis.com/blogimages/open_road_large.jpg