And has it come to this?

I really never intended to stoop to posting song lyrics, but since this is Paul Simon I choose to believe it's poetry. It is poetry. I've muttered about adoring the album Graceland before. Here's the song of the same name. The words are inspired.

The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar
I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the civil war
I'm going to Graceland, Graceland!
In Memphis Tennessee I'm going to Graceland
Poor boys and pilgrims with families and we are going to Graceland
My travelling companion is nine years old - he is the child of my first marriage
But I've reason to believe we both will be received in Graceland

She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that - as if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow

I'm going to Graceland
Memphis Tennessee I'm going to Graceland
Poor boys and pilgrims with families and we are going to Graceland

And my travelling companions are ghosts and empty sockets
I'm looking at ghosts and empties
But I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland

There is a girl in New York City who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil I say
Woah, so this is what she means - she means we're bouncing into Graceland
And I see losing love is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody feels the wind blow

In Graceland, in Graceland
I'm going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain there's some part of me wants to see Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend every love, every ending - or maybe there's no obligations now
Maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland

Title track of album Graceland (1986) by Paul Simon

If I wasn't in Cornwall, I would be trawling through my T.S. Eliot for something I can half remember, too - but I don't have a copy down here and I want it on the page and not on a screen. AND Thom Gunn. Actually, despite the fact that a goodly chunk of my luggage was taken up by books I didn't bring nearly enough and certainly not enough of the right ones. I've been reduced to reading not very sophisticated fantasy from my brothers' bookshelves. It's mostly there because at one stage or other I passed it on to them - in all fairness - but it's definitely hackneyed now.

Empty Tomb
Walls bleed us yellow in squares I'd papered over with postcards.
Our room is throbbing, still aching, still groaning still
With the things of us leached in
who now drip back burning the blistered paint.
The once hallow space hollow –
our womb, its progeny untimely torn and
Dead at the leaving.