Museum of Broken Dreams

She appeared on the eve
Of last horizon's centerpiece
A fever dream
To fast compete with tragedy
Daylight Ingenue
Complete our chosen rendezvous
With a dose of protean reality

We asked her for directions
She pointed to the section
Where the crumbling palace
Meets the limit
Of interstate's
Mirage of malice

Staring through the dirty windshield
For any sign of culture
Asphalt reverie, the vulture
Picks through highway littered notions
For gritty reminiscences
Of the 1950's Queen

In the museum of broken dreams
Attendants cut tears out of tattered magazines
No one notices your screams
Behind the walls of forgotten galleries

In the museum of broken dreams
Delusions curated for infinity
Cryptic monuments to infamy
Dismantled for all the world to see

Trumpets stored away as reveille fades
Mourners shuffle like druid princes on parade
The High Priestess waves
Her obscure pamphlet scrawled with eroded samples
Of knowledge gleaned from destiny's arcade
Seductive laughter rises form the rafters
She never gave the lonely traveler
A map to find his way

All these realizations collided
Unfinished stories
Projects layered with dust
Obsolete technology
A horseshoe dissolved by rust

The jester plays the canceled pageant
Invitations signed and mailed
To phony revellers locked in jails

The Queen weaves sophisticated tangents
Through a tome tarnished by allure
Eroded by the lines that weren't pure

Press your hollow skull
To the window of the carnival
A hallowed showcase for your schemes
There's the world as it is
Not the world as you wanted it to be
All the regrets too heavy to carry
All the broken hours, fragmentary
Plans conspired, brash ambitions retired

In the museum of broken dreams
Attendants cut tears out of tattered magazines
No one notices your screams
Behind the walls of forgotten galleries

In the museum of broken dreams
Delusions curated for infinity
Cryptic monuments to infamy
Dismantled for all the world to see