WHEN TRUTH HITS THE BULL’S EYE

**

Truth hits the bull’s eye

when birds fly like flying saucers

from building tops at daybreak

and drop to the ground

by midnoon,

like the last war sirens claimed them,

for their own ritualistic supplications.

Truth hits the bull’s eye

when for the millionth count, I say,

“I’m ready to leave home”

until it becomes another dream

and fratricide visits the home next

door,

like it was always on the son’s

mind.

**

Scorched Earth bleeds,

stigmata on the hands of a slain saint

and his lover of spirits scales up the

Cross,

asking for reformation,

for all.

But Lazarus isn’t his name

and even his deity sleepwalks,

humming a soft breeze,

all mumblecore,

heard only by his mother,

cremated on the side of the citadel.

***

Truth pinches our abdomens

and swallows our last words.

Words can sometimes become formal

friends,

quoting the law in our presence

and forgetting the weight of the world

*when minors get under

the weights of retired men

and abuse is reframed as a jumbled

up term.

In the long run,

skeletons tumble out of the closet

to hug them,

just like their abusers did,

their chests carved with survivors’

souls,

crying out for a new truth

for their own children.

It never arrives,

not even with a whimper*

**

It’s the truth

when a hard worker is victimized by

class consciousness.

Watching the river

and a lush garden

from the shabby confines of his room,

putting his humanity in a box

along with antibiotics

and a pill-shaped locket,

hanging loosely by his collar.

Ain’t that the whole truth

nothing but the truth,

My Lord?

That plagues come and go

but hypocrites rule the roost

and politics of the third wave expires,

as cities open up their shutters

and people peel off their masks,

their faces runny with deceit.

**

Actually the truth is

that childhood memories fly away

into the distance,

like embers from yesteryears,

nature takes a great deal

out of our sensibilities

and crop stubs still burn,

like hearts set on fire by mindcraft.

In all this,

The truth burns,

like an unforgettable fire.

**

NOTE: the lines within asterisks and in bold font are written to address the evil of abuse perpetrated by often so called ‘renowned men’ who have been left scot-free for decades and were never held accountable for their perverse actions. Two seemingly ‘iconic’ directors WOODY ALLEN and ROMAN POLANSKI are examples of such predatory men, filmmakers whose works I once watched, even loved but I chose to completely shun their filmography and everything associated with them once I read and grasped their histories of child abuse. I feel we must let them be banished from public discourse altogether and hold them accountable for all their covert and public crimes against the very fabric of humanity that they cloaked under the veneer of creative genius or other hollow defences.

That thread of hypocrisy and turning a blind eye informed this poem and created the other verses.