A Sunday In Madrid - Robert Wyatt

Pa arrives in the city of the closed doors

Greeted by miners from Asturias

His limousine streaks past giant shiny moneyboxes

Huddled together for warmth

He is deposited in his inner chamber

Later, Pa meets the bear, impersonates a tree

To confuse the hell’s gates dogs' sense of smell

And rests for chess with no-one

Then (amongst the closed doors) he shrinks

Is dwarfed by rabbits, expands again

To invade the destiny of fourteen mysterious others

Strangely clad, captured by a camera

Carefully arranged, with a space for his image

A plot hatched by fate

Pa looks for diversion in the written word

Meanwhile, the mundane world seeks solace in illusion

An imprisoned rainbow gives shelter to the homeless

A painted machine registers the weight of mystery

And for background interest a kilometre of women

Queue to kiss a wooden foot, patiently

The Queen had been

But no information, in the city of the closed doors

On Christian Spain

Elsewhere, bare buttocks wait their turn

In vain.

No guides available.

All busy in the Prado

Followed by shuffling feet.

Fascinated.

Perhaps

Outside again in the mundane world

In the city of the closed doors

Living men impersonate sleeping saints

On sundry raised surfaces, (like benches)

Art objects seat beadless (beneath coats)

Performance artists simulate poverty and beg

A day’s begging pays the entrance fee

To the Cinema of Terror.

A golden gas mask

Throw the torturers off the trail, amongst

The grazed walls of the city of the closed doors

Pa escapes

Samples the delights of raw fish, good wine

Closes the door of his inner chamber

Closes the door of his inner chamber, and sleeps