Palace In A Box
Palace In A Box


Minutes in an hour, random,
Thrown in, thrown together;
Like trinkets in a cardboard
box. Moments of passion,
A jewelled ring, tears and laughter;
Chocolates and fun, and stories
Shared. Summer love. A yellowed photograph.
Dog-eared letters;
A honeyed kiss, a hidden caress.
A palace of the mind: all sunshine and azure skies!
But palaces have perilous secrets.
The heart deceives; the brain lies.
Buried deep within its devious guts,
rainbow stairs lead blind eyes,
down noxious sewers to cellars filled with
Demons unspeakable; where tortured visions
hide their faces, shrouded in
the shameful stench of rotten minds.
Where ghouls feed on the foul corpses
of dead memories, unburied, floating
On the freezing waters of Cocytus.
And yet the palace’s soul shines on -
(As a beacon to ships in troubled seas.)
Waging silent war on ghosts unknown,
Till journey’s end, when all motions cease.