State Dreams

Like sand-worn pillars of ruin
Whose groping hands have felt the edge,
I sing only of gravity's darkness
Which hardens particle into myth
And forges us from the furnace of empires.

The more I learn of history
Do I read my own diary.
For I have purged innocence
With a bronze purpose like Babylon
Only to cry alone, scattered
Like ravaged mother Rome.

Waterloo slipped from Napoleon's will,
So have lovers eluded my dreams
Causing me to rise in wanton excess
Like Uncle Sam at whorehouse
Rolling in the chocolate of his riches.

We are all like rusted nations
Embracing emotions that peddle dogma,
In poisoned honey vats
That artists drink like wine
And statesmen spill
Against their sticky bibs
In the nursery of legend.

As our lives flutter in a riverbed
And flow in an algebra of pattern,
So are nations suspended,
Snug in a dew-wet web
That glistens in the morning sun
Of a billion smoldering dreams.