National Poetry Month: Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon

(1947-2003)

"Transverse City"
(Warren Zevon)




Told my little Pollyanna 
There's a place for you and me 
We'll go down to Transverse City 
Life is cheap and Death is free 
Past the condensation silos 
Past the all-night trauma stand 
We'll be there before tomorrow 
Pollyanna take my hand 

Show us endless neon vistas 
Castles made of laser lights 
Take us to the shopping sector 
In the vortex of the night 
Past the shiny mylar towers 
Past the ravaged tenements 
To a place we can't remember 
For a time we won't forget 

Here's the hum of desperation 
Heres the test tube mating call 
Here's the latest carbon cycle 
Here's the clergy of the mall 
Here's the song of shear and torsion 
Here's the bloodbath magazine 
Here's the harvest of contusions 
Here's the narcoleptic dream 

Told my little Pollyanna 
Here's a place where we can stay 
We have come to see tomorrow 
We have given up today 
Down among the dancing quanta 
Everything exists at once 
Up above in Transverse City 
Every weekend lasts for months 

Here's the hum of desperation 
Heres the test tube mating call 
Here's the latest carbon cycle 
Here's the clergy of the mall 
Here's the witness and the victim 
Here's the relatives' remains 
Here's the well-known double helix 
Here's the poisoned waves of grain 
Here's the song of shear and torsion 
Here's the bloodbath magazine 
Here's the harvest of contusions 
Here's the narcoleptic dream 
Here's the hum of desperation . . . 



"Transverse City" is the title track from Warren Zevon's 1989's futuristic concept album inspired by Zevon's interest in the work of cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson: "I write songs about things that I'm simultaneously trying to not think about." (Warren Zevon interviewed in 2003.)