For there resides a truth in every lie
Bedecked in flowing robes and glowing tones
A heart upon a skewer that must die
Sad memory of Summer's long bleached bones
Silence in the shimmering dust of lust
Lingers on the edges of truth's lie
Breathing in the scent of sordid trust
Succumbing to a breath that will not die.
And yet within the thistled twist of time
The air will change and freshen out to sea
Scars will fade, lust's memories entwine
As truthful lies return to set us free.
For truth is but the flashing fear of when
And lies the endless search for once again.
John G. Lawless
3/31/2020
Light leavens leaden doors.
Genealogies of genocide are lost
in long night rides through thistled trees,
dark reunions of distant blood.
Kinships are recounted, mantras murmured
of summer savory and sorrel flaxseed
like scars on wrists, a sparrow grass of needles.
We are immutable, terra cotta with wild glints
of sea-flecked eyes--
a mask of freedom, a final submission.
Origami moths mime legends in tallow lights,
stigmata their small dyings with rites of regeneration:
bleeding dim faiths, sealing silent sins
with the infection of sky.
We become insane shadows, cloistered cousins
of a dark, moist marrow
mythological as opaque men in pale pearled sheets,
chiaroscuro faces written in a white rage of worms.