Prague

A thousand years of age marks the stones that surround the narrow streets,
a few hundred feet march in time to a drum beat under the crimson flags
of another mad dictator or over zealous savior as their reigns come and go
buildings rise up with buttresses and fall back down in the flames stoked
by the insane passions of an all too familiar sense of post modern warfare.
The Vltava crawls through the city green and blue, the waters old then new
as the myriads of saints face each other and cross in a graceful arch whilst
musicians and street performers ply their trades like marionettes at play
Was this the way it was in my memory? Was this the day I claim to see
the angels casting their flaming shadows down upon the cobblestones
while in the alleys the monsters rest, the shadows follow their stride.
Did I walk there in a dream?
Was I a man of elder smoke and sallow bone?
Was there a moment when the gaslights remembered the forgotten names
will the ghosts that walk the ways between the sinners and the shame
of a thousand days where history went awry. Was this where I saw
the girl with the dark blue hair, Was it her footprints I found there
in the snows covering the statues in Wenceslas Square?
When I walk in the old town in the noise, the urban confusion
 I find myself looking for fictional diners with goulash in bowls
hidden behind the shops, the underground catacombs of collusion
with revolutionaries marked by blood, the soft touch of velvet sublime
was this the same city or place that is lost yet not in the annuals of time?