The King Claims

The situation is this—
 
we’re working for another
king now
who's gay 
 
& half a head
shorter 
than his lover…
 
The king claims
there's been negligence…
the king claims
 
that funds
--like himself--
are short…
 
Somehow, the mules are starving
while the treasury’s been drained 
on horses, war horses
 
(lining the pockets 
of those who breed them, who
of course, are all friends of the king).
 
And even if the rest 
of the kingdom is starving,  
going broke now 
 
the fault here, somehow 
--or certainly the burden
is ours.
 
And so the king 
will no longer see us
we can only hear
 
what the king claims
through his lover
who's now in charge…
 
And so, 
it doesn’t look good,
what it looks like
 
is we should now offer
to work for nothing,
or close to it.
 
That is, if we ever
want to work
in this kingdom again…
 
Well, all the wealth
sucked 
to the top
 
& stoked by 
war
doesn’t need Dr. Freud.
 
I mean listen to the news, and
Welcome to the Kali Yuga,
Have a nice day! 

--No, that’s too smug,
You already know that.
What about your own
 
real negligence, 
and the raging real conflicts
of your own real life

that you keep facing
in the same old way,
giving preferential treatment
 
to the parts of yourself
that are already well-heeled
and have it cushy?

--You’re nearly broke. No wife,
yet remain in your cloister, writing
& keep facing the world
 
as if there’s no there there,
no one who’d receive you.
So the king, who’s that
 
in you? A runt who sends
an emissary, his better half 
out to do his bidding
 
--that which he loves
& holds in high esteem--
but what about your body?
 
That faithful mule
who has served you so well
& to whom you throw scraps?
 
What about your social instinct
--kind of clunky, isn’t it,
and why you’d think 
 
to trot some handsome Johnny out
rather than risk speaking
to your own people.
 
And it’s not even clear
what kind of work you do,
well, what about that?

You weren’t sure
what to make of this
dream.  (Sometimes it takes

time, lots of time, the grit
of time slowly rubbing
against our blinders…

Your initial interpretation of the dream’s lyses
lacks the sight-lines, the actual vantage
and so, misses the point
 
of the angelic
messenger who brings you
your dreams.

Here’s what you thought:
 
“This is just what it’s like… 
to have a memory
that doesn't know when to quit.”
 
“As if in the night
its satchel
has dipped back, way back”
 
“into the storehouse, 
for grain put away
from some other time”
 
“--a time
when all that mattered
is what the king claims…”
 
             ~~~

Clever. But that interpretation is just
piss-elegance, and being
spiritually jive.
 
Like much religion, the transmission of this
dream got garbled between worlds. 
Parts were lost. Here’s what you missed: 
 
There are actually two kings
in this dream, two kings
in you & in everyone
 
& when we
look down
on either
 
we cynically
fail to recognize
our own majesty.
 
One king is your ego, 
the stressed-out ruler
of a precarious realm. 
 
The other king seems no longer around
(He’s invisible, but when we forget about him
that leaves the ego king in charge). 
 
But don’t look down
on your ego
either
 
--that king is doing
the best he can
with limited resources.
 
But the job is too big for him.
He’s a little like George W. Bush,
a little like Judas Iscariot
 
--a needed leavening to thicken the plot,
though he actually serves
to end one age and bring in another. 
 
And as with the two kings, 
there are two common kinds of war.
One kind is stupid, an inadequate solution
 
fueled by righteousness, hubris, and greed
blaming others, impotent rage…
--it drains your treasury.
 
The other kind of war
is an internal affair
waged against the above.
 
Tame your own inner conflicts
& the missing king
comes back into view.  
 
That jihad
is the war
we need to fight.
 
But don’t forget to feed the mules.
They’re the faithful forms of discipline
that can carry your load to market. 
 
Our world is starving, suffering now
from a lack of discernment
between these two kings, 
 
and between these two kinds of war.
Become a friend of the king who
was here first, the king who doesn’t blame, 
 
who doesn’t act out of duality
--give him everything
and there’s nothing real you will lack.