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The King Who Dreamed Too Far

He dreamt a throne of light, not steel,
 a sceptre raised to bless, not bind.
He thought the crown a covenant,
 a flame of heaven, not a coin of men.

But lords weighed land, not visions;
 they counted swords, not stars.
His voice, a psalm in marble halls,
 fell hollow where the market roared.

He spoke of majesty as sacrament,
 while others bartered power like grain.
He built a palace of glass ideals,
 and wondered why stones broke it.

Misread, mistrusted, misaligned,
 he stood apart, a figure out of season.
Not tyrant only, nor saint entire,
 but a man who dreamed the wrong dream
 in the wrong room,
 at the wrong time.

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Why do they mock the dream that crowns my brow?  

I thought a king might rule by sacred breath,  

That majesty, like altar‑flame, should bow  

All hearts to awe, not bind their hands in death.  

Yet lords would weigh their acres, count their swords,  

And barter England’s soul for fleeting gain.  

I spoke in psalms, they answered me in hoards,  

My visions fell like rain on roofs of disdain.  

O crown, thou hollow prophet of my fall,  

I read the stars, but not the room of men.  

They sought a steward, I a priestly hall,  

And so I lost the realm I could not ken.  

Thus stands my ghost, a dreamer out of season,  

Undone by faith, and not by want of reason.  

Incense

The boy kneels, the air thick with incense,
 his lips moving through half‑learned prayers.
The crown waits on a cushion of velvet,
 gold glinting like sunlight on water.

The lords murmur, the bishop lifts his hand,
 the boy’s eyes follow the drifting smoke.
It curls upward, soft, unthreatening,
 a scent of sanctity, a promise of peace.

Years later, in a stone‑cold cell,
 he breathes the same smoke —
not incense now,
 but the dust of his crumbling crown.

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The Child Who Bowed Too Soon

He knelt as if the floor were altar stone,
 palms pressed, lips shaping psalms half‑learned.
The candlelight made halos of his hair,
 a novice heart rehearsing grace.

Yet outside, banners cracked in wind,
 lords weighed their swords, not prayers.
The boy was bound not for the cloister’s bell,
 but for the hollow clang of crown.

Innocence bent beneath inevitability,
 a child who might have prayed,
 but was compelled to reign.

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