Ode to a Sunken City / City of Ghosts

[Lysander Gray]

Your hands reek of the sea
salted and raw,
a perfume pulled loose
once trapped in tangles of hair.

Your mouth spills vodka
from veins once lively filled
with Shangri-La’s private reserve.

Your brow pounds that wet, wavy perm –
“Pacifica” on the tongues of your old lovers,
“Life” on the lips of your children.

They are grown now
some orphan some bred.
Some gleaming golden with
the scar of bronze worn too thin
beneath helmets of gold.

But it is your skin that I am concerned with-
Pock-marked and varicose.
A cemetery of promises and the occasional
pastel mausoleum rising
as mountains of broken teeth
through which your children play
alongside savages and barbarians
and the ghosts of old debutantes.

On rainbow coloured evenings
they bring the forest to your breast
and you; mother/ auntie
witness the crawl from tomb to tomb,
ruffling their dull plumes
to the beats of the crooning sea.

This is an Ode to a Sunken City-
Babylon of old with the sweetest warm kiss of death and delight.

There is boredom in your black; there is vengeance in your gold
as children disobey that which they are told.

Babylon of black, Babylon of gold
Mother of children with tales untold,
that dance between your broken teeth
and veins so very old.

This is an Ode to a Sunken City-
a song to your mountains and coasts,
your distant eyes and children now ghosts,
your lies of dreams enchanting and your plain faced hosts.

This is for the city of Ghosts.