Where Gods And Dreamers Fly (Poetry)

I once knew adoration —
its glow around me lifting
like a soul acknowledging
that flight was possible, but then
my adolescent Venus didn’t value
those gifts that love can bring.

Such moments stretch unbroken
in my memory and only
lately shifting to a room
I hardly dare to visit
where all the thoughts unspoken
and unconsummated sighs
are kept carefully
as shells packed deep in sand.

It’s colder since the lamps
that were your eyes
have dimmed and we are distant
lights — each in another galaxy.

You seldom write, I barely answer
prayers you lay upon my altar
even though your faith was torn away
you tell me of your life —
a mantra hardly changing
where old resonances stay.

And sometimes in these lines I find
an echo of that passion
unshakeable and pure
and it resurrects a time
when you dreamed of a goddess —
imagined you might capture the divine.

Did I feed off your devotion?
Did I drain you of all rapture?
Did you sacrifice your vision-haunted mind?

Does it help to know I miss you?
Is it some small consolation
that my flesh is failing, too?

So many priests have come and gone
lit a candle at my shrine
worshipped and moved on.

And their faces are all lost to me —
they never made me feel adored
the way you used to do...
in that old room you’re on your knees
your meditations thrill and freeze
false immortality.

My sacred pigeons have come home —
they’re roosting in the fading light —
they shuffle there and coo
a soothing litany that tells
of sky and freedom where the gods
and other dreamers fly...

that gilded world you offered
when you believed in me —
a realm to rule
a throne to occupy
but vanity had craved for something more
and now my splendid temple walls
are ruined and my statue falls
unceremoniously.

I remember adoration
as the pedestal is tipping
and the cracks begin to run
while these last few words are sure
to find you on some morning
bowing to a grateful sun.