I
In the mist rising from an ancient radio
I hear your voice, attempting
to reveal, within melody, a rhythm
that is clean as it’s strong and so slow

that I trust freedom will come as rescue;
as it sings my eyes are opened
to the brilliance surrounding the moon,
the turning of night from red to blue.

The words became gentle rain for the drought
that claims the ground where I collapsed
into the depth of your waiting arms;
long before I broke the surface, a rainbow trout

touched for the first time by the strange, soft hands
that pull me to the sea from coral sands.

II
Then you offered me salvation, a cup
filled with wine, the sweet fruit
harvested deep beneath your skin.
It filled my mouth like a wave spiraling up

and crashing down on the shore, moving with out
a guarantee of safe passage
through the straits to where new moon sleeps,
laughing beneath the stars that shout.

My voice becomes lost in the heat, a drop
of water swallowed as your lips drag
across mine; the tide stirs the silt
until it’s time for us to part or stop

moving with the drums, the liquid jade
building here where we casually wade.

III
Pulling me to the sea from coral sands
reveals you and the less graceful
swan I am, skirting down along
the fens to a place outside the badlands,

rising like heat from the bed to the top
of a silent pond: you carve deep
the still water to create a spectrum
for tired eyes, a light that will skip and hop

through the midnight; our genesis
from a world that is vast as it’s moist.
The moon, stars, sky, and wind
weave a quilt of driftwood and bliss,

that reflects me as I drift into your ocean,
offering nothing but a chance at motion.

IV
Building here, as we casually wade,
is the oxygen we both seek
to become the raging ocean
or a tiny rill in the afternoon shade;

sliding from the shore of the island in mist,
unsure of the direction but still wanting
to become the water that hides
in the symbols our bodies make when we kiss.

As we dance the music becomes a swarm
of dolphins whose backs we ride upon,
below the surface, to palaces
where the pressure is elliptic but warm

and giving, sleep contemplating me
as our molecules begin to break free.

V
Offering nothing but a chance at motion
you send a beacon through the straits,
it gives a light to the midnight
but the tide is relentless in its notion

of awakening the bay where lost shadows form.
I can see your eyes, the moon, offering solace
as my skin begins to become comfortable,
welcoming me home from riding the storm

I had called my home. It was out of that rage
that bathed me in salt and silence, rising
from the open sea, that a current blew
in calypso time; the words of a sage

telling us to become one just spin,
like a whirlpool, before trying to swim.

VI
As our molecules begin to break free
she holds me close and drops anchor
through a viel of clouds; a question
of evaporartion, the storms at sea

forever changing from the wars they wage,
this army that will separate
and reform outside November.
You say “Make love to me, turn the page

of our innocence, wind with me then part
like the braids in my hair, get lost
in the motion or find tomorrow
with the untamed force of a beating heart”,

and it echoes so I can never forget
we are water, what can be refromed or split.

VII
Like a whirlpool, before trying to swim,
I dance in the turquouse water
forming a lake on the ceiling,
it pools and my hands gently skim

the slight curve of your back as you arch
toward me. Not fearing gravity
you push your hips to mine
and ballance; calling me to march

in the sunlit ocean and find redemption
that rolls beyond the harbour filled with fog,
to remember the night come morning
for the dark as it curls and attempts one

last stand but refuses to worry,
to never ask how we’ll end the story.

VIII
We are water, what can be refromed or split
in the churning broth of the sea;
where we dance naked inside the soft warmth
of an indian summer, outside this

palace where midnight can become sun;
where we float like angels reveling
who are consumated by a new gospel
that refuses to preach; where we can run,

a rill in a Greecian meadow, or condence
and flood the streets of Cyprus with rain.
You hold my waist tight, overwhelming
my reason with a faint scent, the sense

not even gravity is constant
when I start to do what I said I can’t.

IX
To never ask how we’ll end the story,
to desire only the soothing water
and breathe as one, with eyes wild
as this song of invisible glory

that will call us home like the coincidence
of heat increasing and the outside
world no longer existing. We are
the oxygen that has found some repentance

from the air that floats above when we wake
and swell up; a great wave to wash the shore,
the stillness of a forgotten pond, and the rain
falling down. We are what we make

real as we move faster and ignite
a resolution that promises light.

X
When I start to do what I said I can’t
time becomes a cloud that shelters
before releasing me through thickening air;
when I accept only what it will grant

I land on your tight stomach,
firm breasts, and gentle hips that curve
down and become the thighs you slide
my hand slowly along, forward and back

until the sky has broken through the deafening fog.
We forge forward without any maps
to guide us through the reef encasing
our freedom, moving like we were the cog

that allows the earth to change seasons,
never asking for answers or reasons.

XI
A resolution that promises light
when we become sound and float
toward the surface, a slow insistence
to reform between day and night,

toward the slow seeping swamps and bogs
that offer a chance at transformation, unconcerned
with having a destination.
The miles of asphalt sleep like cats and dogs

behind us, littered with all our ghosts and demons;
those we were fearful of or scared
when we began to swell in the moon,
those who mark the back roads and show our course was

leading here. Night will become day soon
still miles from the end of the tune.

XII
Never asking for answers or reasons,
you hold the music in your soul
and make a mad dash for home
after we’ve exorcised our demons.

The calm surface, in a deep voice, divorces
the past from this moment, one sip
of that beautiful rush redeems
us as we revel; in fading choruses,

singing about our last dance together.
You turned around then took my right hand
and placed it on your back, to dig deep
an impression that reflects the weather;

the warm rain that rose from cold snow
in the static of an ancient radio.

XIII
Still miles from the end of the tune
that quiets with the morning and at night
rises like a psalm, still recieving the sea
but not kneeling or praying to the moon

as it concieves; soft as a feather,
glowing like the glitter I find
on my face at dawn, a mirror
reflecting your crown of jasmine and heather.

There are dark spaces we still must float through
with ceremony, a chance of seperation
in the violence between cloud and sea,
a chance we may forget everything we knew.

I was drowning while standing up
then you offered me salvation, a cup.

XIV
It was in the static of an ancient radio
you send a beacon, through the straits
where we float like angels reveling,
rising like heat from the bed to the top

always present in the light that skips and hops.
You hold me close, dropping anchor
in the morning, giving a nod
and balance, a child on a rotting cart;

never asking how they’ll end the story,
forging forward without any maps.
You turned around, then took my right hand,
a resolution that promises light,

I let myself drown, without question
you offered me salvation from your cup

This is a double crown, it was started in 1997 after a Phish show in Hampton Virginia, it waas finished in 2002 when I fell in love with my x-wife. She inspired the title and gave the loose theme some unification. A crown is seven sonnets, a double fourteen, and it is addressed to a single person or idea. They are linked by the last line of the first being the first line of the second.  I made the last line of the first the first line of the third and instead of the first line of the first being the last line of the last I used the first line of the second to be the final line and included in the fourteenth sonnet one line from each of the other sonnets. The title is a religious reference to the Catholic belief that Mary ascended to heaven alive to sit beside God.