Martell Overture (Complete) Poem by Ross Mackay

- -Where She Watches Over Babylon- -




The night will bite like fingers on an egg,
leave a tang on the tongue like old coffee.
The holy neophyte with cat like tread
and wading through the elm heartwood
which were her eyes, I went to the widow.
The Babylon Lady in her glow descends,
the thousand acres become the great oasis.
Now in the sun and moon- the spring lambent,
the trinkle turning daisies of a flashlight,
the hour has the bulb climb the water walls.
She is musing- porcelain behind marble.
Descending, she treads as finely as the sonnet,
the whispers of her threads like heavy fog,
with her hand she'll touch the angels, and
with her eyes she'll keep the Eden gate open.
Soon they'll be kneeling in brandy rivers,
drunk as fallen timber- the common guardsmen.
We should watch them, and laugh.

How beautifully blue the sky,
the stars are trapped, the moon is high.
Now the clouds so green, so why,
are they turning in the mountain sky.

Icicles rest about her in great curls of sleep.
We're floating from planet to planet-
Our dream is loose on the rock.
The lights are off.
Waking.
The lights are on.
She walks through a snakepit.
Sandy apples appear and disappear-
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight.

Sweet dream of night had passed away
Young silent tyrant, by a swift decay
If I should lay my soul to earth:
I could lie as I did at birth
The time in which we could run has passed.
The waters climbing over the mountains,
leaning from the castle walls- dawn in eyes.
Olive daydreams and morning fantasies-
the tearooms, the beamed walls and marching tunes,
as we watch from the window, fires bloom.

Have you come to watch returning carriages?
Have you come to watch the dawn of winter?
Have you come to watch dying early spring?
Have you come to watch the birth of a nation?

On the rooftops of the half-sprung houses
Thus descends the cloud of empty soldiers,
signal sirens whistle wards in chancery
to come out to play, succumb and be swallowed.
Maybe they'll let us sit in chains, we can weep,
and have the work set us free and my home
can set fire to my eyes.
On the hill, her linen of one guinea,
Guiding the ghosts home and lying down thin
with her arms stretched out and smiling brightly,
she gives into the air.
- the nymph of the Nimrod tower,
- the tealight eyes of her face
- she flies.
And descending from the covenant mountain,
have they not heard that God is dead?
Half squeezed, the tables are like rocks-
counters under the Ararat lowlands.
Misfortune brings a winter too early.
In our tents we'd talk until morning-
the lost nights sat up in the rain
with our hollow conclusions and cry
at our unfinished portraits of women.
All day long it was gently leading,
the troubled hands holding me-
come closer to the fire.

Winter's tales told me how

raindrops could be counted

and scattered hayward now

and there'd be rhapsody too

in green as fire was blue.

I am young enough now
to sit hollow-eyed,
drunk as maidens
on a willow day.
Climbing too
far for beggars
to reach.
Heaven-
weary.
…..............

The Babylon Lady touches the ground- soft like her skin under the milk wood. The great crates of battleships will parade, the armies will kneel and spin heaven hayward. She will shine as bright as fire and she'll ride far and near over a world she can hold in her hands.

I have heard the clock.

The black mist now a wanderer white,
the shake of snow for those who stare
at the wanderer groping bog green.
I love these last days of wanderer dew.



Now in Carthage they come,
like the cooing birds they burn,
burn
burn
Now my girl far and near, cherries as pairs,
just the coarseness of my hand, just a touch.






- -Solstice Dance IV- -




She whithers in the wind,
she crumbles in my hand.
I set the table for Sunday dinner,
just for myself, no one else was coming.
Still she helps me set up,
still she is ever present
in my half-smile-
a stain on my portrait
when the mirror sighs with me.

She has bad taste in headwear,
she's still better dressed than me.
I set my watch to get up tomorrow,
I'll be preparing my own breakfast.
Still she'll watch over me,
still she'll sip her tea,
in the halfmoon-
a chip on my window
where the raindrops comfort me.






- -Jungian Archetypal Pyschology- -





The Mother

Don't let go, or I'll be alone in my age-
tripping hither, tripping thither...


The Master

And with this Earth you'll grow
and with this stone you'll endure
and with this iron you'll cast
listen, how brightly bugles blast...


The Conqueror

Don't let him look you in the eye,
a conqueror can fly into the gaze.
Where we should love we struggle,
pennies at our feet.
Striding over the swords,
marching through open gates,
smelling terror, a scent of gold...


The Old Man

From life to life and age to age,
the ideas as sharp as a knife
never hesitant to start a fight
Pitching the fields, drinking
sloe, slow black gin.


The Scientist

I came from the English Department,
not the Chemistry...


The Poet

Penny singing. Lightly skipping.
The holst which marches onto dawn
the falcon cry the dragon yawn
the gondoliery laughing fairies
the victory parade.
Nearly falling. Softly peeling.
The mountains of the laughing womb
the ashes of the bluesman's tomb
the soul endeavour marching thither
from Elba they were slain.
Smoke that rises oh so clearly
castle of the gondoliery
falling fires rising plenty
matyrs of the gondoliery.
Threads of silver fly forever
Let us die with hands together
Beds of cinnamon rising up again
Blood of innocent raising what and then?
The holy lands of men!
The castle of consent!


The Shadow

Beneath the shadow falls the thorn
sniffing through papers, the wreckless,
the impulse, the greed and gold.
Watching her stride as fog glides over her wings
like the nymphs of the forest, the pretty things.
Bleeding through the gums I find a sunday wife
and now my children shall grow up to be kings!
When I walk about the Troglodytes
but bask in the sun I call the hoards,
all those miles underground, all that silence,
all that shouting. It's doing me harm.






- -The Black Poem- -




When I ride my, my catfish mama, I'm gonna ride down in the sea, how like the sweet ma ma send that dropher for send that dropher for me send that love for me send that love for me play when I went down to the churchyard I need to pray on my knee mama not a word to say not a word to say not a muddy water to say not a word to say on my knee not a word top say play along man, play along time. Little bit a bad moaner, flag your owner, bad owner, go weavil, home owner n im gonna write a letter write to just to see see my babe who you thinking of, harmony, little thing called harmony little thing called harmony howl thing called harmony.






- -Zoo York- -



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.






- -O Freunde, Night Diese Tone! - -




Take my life back four years, I recall the wild parties, the quick tempers and long summers. I can see them again...

I'd sing for blackbirds while we leant over the balcony, looking over Venice and watching the bright eyes. I can see them again...

Enter the higher men!

The conqueror
The lonliest
The slave of duty
The minutes-to-live
The unborn
The unloved
The market trader
The shop worker
The sober
Those who ride birds.

A last supper for the higher men,
oh night, night, night.
A wanderer in blue, must I sit alone?

Red: For the higher men, who want to sink their teeth in meat
Blue: For our wine, our lips
Green: We're covered in filth
Grey: It's all I see, all I see.

Sitting on the wood of the ark
my eyelids crack under the frost-
the whistling hands of sky
rush the grass from its roots.
All the sabbath through the ground was wet with dew
and loving the sustain the harpies circled you.
The tangent of the pass, the snow is painted blue,
Thermopylae in war again-the obscuring view.

The swords fall silent suddenly,
the sun disappeared.
Mountains grow red,
the priests,
have they not heard that God is dead?


The wanderer stands,

bows west and east,

and thus sung:

All is fought, all is won.


On odeing to joy, all fire ceased.
The full moon in march smoking over the seas.
All light and eyes are flowering
for the timbers of ancestry fold
as in field and factory, we celebrate unity.
Now in this final hour,
we count the spears,
we're surrounded.
I've ascended the walls of heaven:
O Freunde, Night Diese Tone!
O Freunde, Night Diese Tone!
Oh love I love, I ode to joy!
I sing for life, I hail the guardians!
Have the forests march for thee,
for all who live bow down to me!

The cave is where all that exists, exists.
The world ends at the skin,
the cities are in my hands,
the temples are in my mind,
the mountains are my feet,
the rivers are my veins,
the love is my heart.

The wanderer above a sea of gold,
where he steps is sea no more
but the path of the higher man
and the kingdom of all his eyes.

Now we count the merchant ships,
which come sailing from your lips
Now I count the oars,
the slaves
the salt water which they dip.