Fake News

“Diamonds and Lies” by Brenda York

 

above the treeline

voices carry forever

circling the globe

every lie ever told

weightless words

shallow breaths

of thin air lifted

swiftly on currents

corrupt in their

power to populate

credulous minds

with insidious facts

of dishonesty

misinformation

combining with

disinformation

accomplish the

very worst kinds

of deception

creating electronic

truths bearing

echoes of gospel

Carrion

“Vultures Peak” by Gordon Fraser

what treasons of the heart

turn great nations to ruin

they are always the lies

from the handsomest mouths

made to taste like the truth

whose proof comes too late

when the sovereign flesh

half-picked from sweet bones

feeds a hag volt of vultures

mangy with quills dripping

sanguine stark words filling

bloodlines of civic obituary

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Innuendo

“Whispers” by Denton Lund

 

push your voice
through the tubes
time has turned
into ears

say the things
that will rearrange
meanings to smell
of torn truth

speak the cause
of opinion inculpable
drawn like a wire
through a die

utter sequels to
stories that grow in
the sunless suspicion
of fiction

whisper distractions
to alter the courses
known by the mind
of the wind

express yourself
shamelessly showing
us all despite words
who you are

 

 

From my book Small Noise

Conundrums

Image from pinterest.com

in the swamp
lives leviathan
nostrils alert
for the scent
of men’s lies
jaws engaged
set to snap
the black bones
of deception
and here does he
thrive never once
going hungry

in this fetid
arena where
speeches are
riddles and
trust the frail
province of fools
are great ethical
quandaries civic
conundrums
enough to try
sanity shatter
the mind of an
optimist citizen

no one to pick
up the shards
but the duped
who’ve been led
to embrace the
conceit that the
broken man’s
pieces result
from what surely
must be his mean
sinister judgments
and not from
enlightened
conviction

this dangerous
dark oily place
cannot ever let
truth find escape
it must die here
on tongues of
impostors whose
campaigns contain
empty rhetoric
only to govern as
solipsist rogues
rooted deep in
the slime of all
dead and decayed
noble purpose

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Conjunctive Pronouns

 

“Blame It On The Moon” by Nik Helbig

 

 

in a world of “because”
you don’t hear much of “me”
very rarely an “I”
but a whole lot of “they”
and a mouthful of “them”
it’s convenient ubiquitous sing-song
that’s patently bullshit
and even though everyone knows it
the words dance their crooked dance
making their here-and-gone footprints
all over the backside of truth
never seen by the squeamish
or like-to-be duped
yet it’s easy
so easy to call out the lie
any anyone
just has to open their mouth
and yell “Stop!”
all it takes is
some somebody somewhere
who cares to assert “I and me”
in a world of “because they and them”

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Lunacy

“Moon Madness” by Ruth F.

desperate embrace of big lies
irrational fears in a riot of tears
plague the readily swayed laid
for villains impaled upon isms

how painful is irony bent around
strawmen and strongmen who
painted as haters are merely the
canvas and paint is the hate

these illicit loud portraits engender
real hatred in gullible waves
super moon is indeed much too close
its proximity blinding of brains

desperate embrace of big lies
irrational fears in a riot of tears
plague the readily swayed laid
for villains impaled upon isms

*********************************

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” – Socrates

Eating History

Arlington National Cemetery – Photo From npr.org

(Originally posted here February 2014)
 

the biggest big lie
swallowed time and time again
the war to end wars

Season of Speeches

Drawing by Felicia Follum

in a season of speeches

how many tongues

lash the truth

turn it inside out

twisting the sound

of its meaning

deceptive chords hung

right alongside our ears

like a sly-knotted

dissonant noose

we might dance our necks into

as if we were mindless

enthralled by the

lyrics of charlatans

Enlightenment

“Oil Lamp” by Pierre Bonnard

the lie
enjoys root
in the cold
unlit heart
lives and
grows in
the chilly
dim mind

all it takes
for the truth
to be seen
warm and
real is to
consciously
turn on
the light

* * *

“Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.” – St Paul

“Light is the symbol of truth.” – James Russell Lowell

Odor

“Deception” by Edgeworth Johnstone

 

like a renaissance tanner
anointed
with oil of clove
you cloak your disfiguring stench
in cunning bouquets
of sincerity

where did your face
learn arrangement in
chords of deception?

early on
in the mirror
that taught you to shave?

was it later
in the eyes of
your sense-deprived wife?

or ultimately
in the unsuspect
anosmic grip
of my handshake?

you realize
no truth
will ever again pass your lips
not even if it
truthfully does

the smell of your speech
fouled forever