Museum Of The Broken Mask

Museum Of The Broken Mask
© Surazeus
2025 10 04

If I feel the sudden impulse to sing, 
I will scatter my bones in the wheat field 
where no one but the sad scarecrow has walked 
more than three hundred years of social change 
so elves and nymphs may spring from fertile soil 
to dance at the Super Bowl halftime show. 

If my spirit animal would appear 
to teach me secret of physical space, 
I might design the factories and ships 
my brothers could use to conquer the world 
using the Mercator projection map 
to sail straight across the sea to new shores. 

I sail the blue boat of my aching heart 
across the future shameful sea of faith 
to study hunger of the human soul 
through psychic resonator of concern 
by smuggling treasures of lost empires home 
to stock museum of the broken mask. 

Reluctant to perform as optimist, 
I like awake beneath the starless sky, 
and count the humans living on this globe 
who leave their faces hanging on home doors 
as we design new theories about hope 
for children who draw visions at dark schools. 

Yet no one listens to the desert god 
who howls solemn hymns on the radio 
in preparation for the next world war 
that we must fight against cruel oligarchs 
who charge taxes for water and sunlight 
so we eat stew of bones and bitter truths. 

Though if feels as if the rocks and the clouds 
are also dying through weird social change, 
we call each other on the telephone 
that translates voices into ocean waves, 
so we drive across the country of hope 
to listen to our blind god sing the blues. 

Lost in rugged hills of integrity 
where pine trees discuss old philosophy, 
we find wind-erased tomb of the first god, 
whom men once worshipped on the ziggurat, 
who welcomed homeless migrants to the feast, 
except the witch who lingers on the bridge. 

Connected by network of singing wires, 
that weave old prophecies in movie plots, 
we crowd museum of the broken mask 
where ravens gather on idols of gods 
though every human in America 
goes fishing on the river of glass skulls.