Twin Crowns

I ask you; take a moment
reach out and try to grasp the frozen
fog condensed from the fragments
of my maddened mind and the visions
dragged out in the sands of black beaches
volcanic rock and albino birds
nesting between the tree trunks
of giant fossils and failures

You have asked me one too many times
for the keys to a treasure chest
I no longer can find or even claim as my own
but under the tattered umbrella even the rain
sounds like music being written
by the stars and their slaves: to the children
that took it upon themselves
to name the zodiac for the rest of us

There is poetry, and there is prose,
and then there is the fable
being composed between the orbits
belonging to twin crowns

I am neither of these two
simply something that was born
as I slept on that mattress
in a room of painful moments
that forged personal philosophies
once shared by Socrates and his pupils

God knows, I have bowed to the memory
of my heritage and my own heart,
the land of densely populated
ideas and ideologies; ever expanding

I have walked into the thick of the ash
stepping to the flickering beat
pulsing through the flames
to retrieve parchments
written in the blackest of ink
as ransom notes addressed
to the spirit of the fire itself

So ask your father; what's a dream to a vision?
blind eyes and mute mules conversing
about the proper answer to the human condition
ripped from headlines and textbooks
written by the privelaged in a language
spoken by cunning thieves and crooks
yet to be mastered by the common folk

There may indeed be enough love to go around,
but not enough lifetimes to truly show it
so its dished out in careful rations
devoured by the wilted northern winds
circling wasted youths and potent passions
collecting the scraps into makeshift moments
and foundations used to build empty mansions