Dirge

I took carefully the dreams of my brother
removed the lines from textbooks
with stratching fingers,
Stole away with flags and songs and symbols
screaming hate for him

Dumped them in the river of our youth,
that seething slime street to our city.

I placed carefully the dreams of my brother
In a gold-leaf tin on the side of our road,
A flask of hope for the sorrow-heart passerbys.
Advertised
by a sharpied mess of factory and farm
cursing bourgeois
on broken bits of cloth.

Falling into Washington
in the back of a bus.
To fight
To dream
To feel
for the street tattered crossways
where the fallen never change
to sink deep into the Earth clutching
antique clocks and doorknobs
and golden tins
of a perfect world.

I took carefully the dreams of my brother
layed them down by his side for him
to seek and to feel
if frozen fingers could fall free
from cold hearts who forced them here.
those obelisks of freedom formed
stratch their skies
pens for policy
golden papers
that took from me
the only boy I knew
that could find the feeling
to cry.

-Music in Regine, 2007