Passover Prevaricator

Spoken on the first night of Pesach.

I am a liar (so sayeth slavery);
don’t believe a word I say.
I am discord in liquor, a sealed book,
the crosshairs of a musket, the truancy
of a hooligan.  So don’t
believe me, don’t believe a single utterance,
for I am fabricator, I am lies, I am the specter
of untruth.
I obscure the light of sun,
I annul the light of moon,
I seal in sarcophagus the splendor of bloom,
the promise of warmth, the voice
of vox populi.
Don’t be taken in, for I am mime in misspeak,
I am evanescent vapor thinned by atmospheric
swirl, by untenable agriculture
slashed and burned in riot.
Disassociate any orations from
my desiccated lips,
disregard the words at once as incubus,
as bad ransom, as damaged farthings
fallen to sea bottom.

Regard the rich as they amass their
fortunes forthright; regard the poor
in their threadbare rags, entreating the
elite with calloused hands and sunken eyes.
And regard us liars, we who fib gladly
advocating slavery, deceiving
with grins lobe to lobe, for we
grind truth into devil’s grist.


30 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
4-23-16