Category: truth

It’s a Familiar Enough Lie (a reading)

It’s a Familiar Enough Lie

With a headful of sighs,

I move from room to room,

stand in the doorway, then turn,

followed by dark regrets

which waited to slither back 

from all the obvious corners.



I promise myself again

as I slip further away: 

it will only be a moment;

then days, then years vanish

before the wait will stop,

before I walk out the door.

(September 19, 2020)

Afternoon Light

from a work in progress, “process, not a journey”(69)

the grey cat sits

on the table by the window

and watches the mockingbird

on the elm outside

.

I watch her patience

today and yesterday

and last week

and think she’s oblivious

to sit so stoically

day after day

without hope

of any desires’

consummation

.

I lose my way each day

throughout the day

thinking of this

then distracted by that

as if the unspecified contains 

some mysterious truth

more than a cat

sitting in the sun

(June 28, 2020)

In the Blood

The lie of my truth

visors the angle

of my descent.

I have no face,

but reflection,

a mirror

to lace assumption’s

discordance.

My flesh contains

shattered selves—

a prismatic array,

where each shard

bends an image

of itself into another.

This truth lies

along an edge

of broken glass;

it slices the air

with ribbons of light,

like tall grass

cuts children’s legs

as they flee through

the last summer fields.

(August 15, 2019)

Confession as a Form of Explanation

My story is true in so far

as it is my story. The lines

I must maintain for my belief

to be justified are many.

I fear questions lest it all falls

like a child’s tower of blocks falls,

tumbled across unstable ground.

Although I know that the truth lies

for I formed each one on my own,

turning them over and over

like rosary beads until smooth,

they still allow me to believe

each stone lies firmly on the next.

With no one to doubt what I say,

the facade I have built is real

I explain to myself myself:

I live forms of happiness

As long as the ever after,

and the hero is always me.

(June 30, 2019)