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Issue 9 Page 64
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She Knows He Lies
She knows he lies.
He tells her when he does.
He lies, he says, only for virtuous purposes
And never to her.
There doesn’t seem to be
Any purpose for him to lie to her.
She knows what she needs to know about him.
He knows that there is nothing he can say
That will excite her in that way,
That will cause her to drift closer
To seek his company.
He confesses to her his lies,
Proves to her that he has lied,
And she is convinced that
Indeed he has.
Sometimes she is amused,
Other times irritated.
He never lies, it seems,
About anything important.
Sometimes she wonders why he tells her
About his lies.
“Do you think I am impressed
Because you confess to me
That you have lied,”
She considers asking him.
She means, does he think
That she thinks
That he is being daring?
No, he explains, even though
She never asks the question.
It’s not that, it’s not that.
Rather, he hopes that his honesty
Will resonate with her,
That his honesty will disable
His penchant to be evasive,
Will reveal to her an aspect of himself
Free of artifice,
And above all else,
Will give them something
About which they may laugh,
When they have run out of things to say.
Reason’s Dance
Approach cautiously those pesky
Subterranean reasons
Nibbling at our moral and
Spiritual infrastructure
Inciting us to act in ways that
Defy good sense and
Our long-term prospects
That are more opaque than
Quantum particles engaged
In their chaotic dance. But
Do not spurn them altogether
Because chaos often yields
Positive outcomes
Created in the image of the same
Unintelligible disarray
From which we have all evolved.
(Originally published in Clackamas Literary Review (2017), with a different last line.)
Uncertainty
We celebrated our uncertainty
Under the spell of pink dianthus,
Watching shadows waltz
Over a buckling dance floor
To the clamor of
Silverware clanging in dark recesses,
While musicians in silhouette
Sat motionless,
Skipping out before the waiter
Returned with the check,
Or our desert.
Siren Song
Here’s to the clamor, the clatter, the cacophony,
The ring-’round-the block roaring,
The thrumming and thumping
Echoing off bricks, cement, glass, steel,
Sounds colliding with sounds,
The clang of ladles against pot tops,
The clacking of claves,
Tones bent and stretched,
A penny whistle warbling,
An electric guitar plugged in and amped up,
A trumpet blaring and screeching,
A two-finger whistle piercing,
But always the shouting
And the cheering
And the hooting
And the howling
And the clapping
And the yelling
And the clapping
And the shrieking
And the clapping
And the clapping and the
Ovation,
From terraces and rooftops,
Out of open windows,
From the sidewalks,
Joined by horn blasts from buses, taxis, trucks,
From every vehicle passing by . . .
And, swirling through the heartfelt bedlam,
Blending together the rollicking brew:
A siren’s blare and flashing lights —
A hero’s serenade —
Galvanizing our set-upon spirits
And revitalizing this beleaguered city.
© Rossella BLUE Mocerino: Venice No. 1525