Martell Overture Part V: 'Zoo York' Poem by Ross Mackay

I


Let us daydream through 38th street
Let us fly through the village walls.
The snow which falls in Central Park
and when someone spoke, I went into a dream.


II

Golden in mercy and shrewd with ticking time,
buildings rise and winter falls upon Zoo York-
one time too few.
Slate mountains and running with the pilgrimage,
they were carousels in their stone armour
while I hung from a distaff still spinning
and singing through the canyon merry-
or just to be at least the ant in the spyglass.


III

The pavements consent to clouds where she steps
and the sonnet's song leaves trails
for your marble eyes and the hardened lime
of an eden's marble walls could burr
a young man's weak heart against hopeless.
Stout with resilience to loving eyes
and ever loathing ash of upset,
the odds of Zoo York left me estranged too.
We were children and life was near its cliff edge,
feathers with tyrants in the towers twenty
and holding your hand, and touching your face


IV

Where kings come to draw breath,
near the half-sea of tears,
they pour wine and herbal tea,
the knives which cut, the queens thirteen.
listen,
hear the great jaw of the night.
Hear the man on the corner cry
'there is no God'- silhoutted women.
May his madness keep his grief hidden.

Let us daydream through 38th street
Let us fly over lead farms.


V

Where are the ropes which held us aloft?
Who were the men who were to wake us?
And who are those men who walk beside you,
faceless and hapless like the sun,
disciples to your charm.
Burnt faces of the east,
they gave you a white horse.
What about those at the train station?
The kings of Rome, the senators of Carthage?
Jazz bands and moonlight sonatas,
bright lights, bright lights, dark alleys.
This may be my final walk,
for all the earthly virtues and cut glass
have brought my mind into captivity
seceding from life and waking to night,
but still alone, underneath the giant's thighs.
Let the sun rise again,
let it bring more skulking rain,
burn the ground where I have lain,
let my absence be my fame.
Turn the sand into the sea,
the desert arbitrary,
have the suited armies flee
now happiness can never-
Dawnlights.


The dream.
Dinner with your parents at Charing Cross,
my father was parked outside.
Crying in the toilets, and it was done.
The ground fell beneath me and I ran to the tent,
all that ever was, ever is and will be,
with my passport to cover my nakedness.
Now the sand in the Holy Land,
we are back, as indeed I'd planned.