The Art Of Lying

The Beauty of Pretending

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Lying is a cunning art,
A maze of riddles to impart,
For a sculptor striking without clay,
Carving truth the other way.

I’d even dare to say, perhaps,
It serves as life’s discreet escape,
From those uneasy, fragile states,
A peaceful mask one might create
When the naked truth, unvarnished,
Disappoints as much as it tarnished.

Yet beware of idle chatter,
Those hollow words that hardly matter,
From souls who stage their borrowed lives,
Feeding on what they can’t contrive.

That is the flaw of the impressionist kind,
The greedy game of the shallow mind,
When all it hides, beneath the hue,
Is a cruel thirst to be seen, too.

But I speak here of a gift refined,
Of wit, of grace, of a clever mind,
That crafts a tale on sudden cue,
From the spark of something new.

Like a poker player’s daring flair,
Who trusts his gut, his steady stare,
While, on the other side,
A carpet seller weaves his tide
Of serpents sweet, so well entwined,
That fools will drink them, blind.

The mystery, wavering between those two,
Lies in the common tricks they strew—
To dance upon that fragile string,
Of confidence and make-believe.

You’ve grasped it, then—this subtle art,
Not meant for every hand or heart;
For only naïve ears will bend,
To songs that never seem to end.