Poetry
Mendacity
Truth was borne,
in chaos agonized.
Its cries assaulted
the unsupervised.
The birth was attended
by well-wishing Fiends
who tried to succor it
by various means.
The First bore a breast
from its gapping chemise
toward the suffering child,
it sought to appease.
From its snarling mouthpiece
It issued a shriek:
“Call to it, precious,
and then you will drink.”
To the false Maternal
did Truth wish well
and puckered its puss
like a vanishing belle.
A Second, disgruntled,
said, “Prove to Me this—
by what Name have you
to offer a kiss!
“Jump from a tower
and fall out not broken
so I, too, can utter
the Name you have spoken.”
The baby just gurgled
and giggled and cooed,
its sweetness confounding
th’ encircling brood.
A third One stepped up
in the crowd’s parting wake
to ensure that the birth
had not been a mistake.
With a bureaucrat’s ardor
and a connoisseur’s eye
the Third would account for
the birth of a Lie.
A hush overfell
as a Tempest retreats,
interrupted only
by th’ blighted lamb’s bleats.
“Hush, hush, sweet baby,
you re not alone.
Make your way boldly
In this, your new home.
Not in solitude
will your agonies sound.
but they’ll issue from fountains,
and water the ground,
And drain into rivers
that run into seas,
where great Courts will gather
to wash in your pleas.
Hush, hush, sweet baby,
and favor me this,”
then the Third set its check
for the Infant to kiss.
But the baby’s eyes blasted
out forth like a Sun,
round circling, its mouth,
a subservient moon.
Its body slid under
the clamoring Feet,
And its soul issued round
like a swaddling sheet.
The Miserable made due
in the closeness of space,
but the sweet Babe before them
had Chaos displaced.
Then round an altar
did proud Angels appear,
which made the cruel Torments
push up in the rear.
Once again One stepped up
from the heavenly wake
to ensure that the birth
had not been a mistake
“Hush, hush, sweet baby,
and suffer me this:”
And again bent its cheek
for the infant to kiss.
The babe turned about
for a sign from above,
or the sound of the fluttering
wings of a dove.
But the stillness among
Greater throngs was immense
‘til Truth hammered out
its final sentence:
“List me not among
your secret addresses,
counting your pennies
against my successes.
Get thee behind me
and I’ll seize my need
past the late hour when
the last of your breed
until the cool hour
of lengthening night,
I persist to draw slumber
In Heavenly sight.”
Truth
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