THE ART OF LYING
The art of lying is a gentle one –
truth’s so often hard to give or take.
Lying can be kind, when all’s said and done.
Your smallest lies you can tell on your phone –
sincerity is not so hard to fake –
the art of lying is a gentle one.
Go further, lie bare-faced in even tones,
look people in the eye, refuse to break
bad news – perhaps, when all is said and done,
when truth’s unwelcome, a cocked gun
that must be turned aside for pity’s sake –
the art of lying is a gentle one.
Lie cleverly, sustain lies once begun –
with reputation, wealth and fame at stake
are those lies kind, when all is said and done?
I said I’ll love you always to someone,
made promises I later had to break.
Is the art of lying a gentle one?
Lying’s seldom kind, when all’s said and done.
AGORAPHILIA
The diagnosis was undisputed.
I took to London’s streets, not homeless
but at home only with strangers.
Addicted, I queued hours for theatres
that I feared to enter,
rode the Circle Line all night.
I boarded a train at Euston:
the Highlands’ silence soothed me.
The eighteenth century had cleared
a space for sufferers like me.
I pressed on further north
where flotillas of cruise-ships
jostled in melted ice-fields
carrying populations away
from the shrinking land.
In Berlin, Washington, Moscow,
I roamed ruined streets alone.
Cleansed by authoritarian laws,
teeming cities were scoured of crowds,
California, Brazil, Australia, Africa
already lost in flames, Antarctica
now a dwindling suburb of the Equator.
I long for the final clearance.
I’ll find Nirvana in the huge horizons
of this barren planet.
I just have to say what wonderful, clear concise and inspiring poetry these two represent. They are obviously intensely personal delivering the full weight of truth with such a light touch. Unbelievable, and highly illustrative of what we should all aim to achieve. Subtle yet direct and persuasive.
Oh and congratulation, so pleased for you!