Goddamn Lies

They cut deeper, they do
 They hurt more than the unvarnished ones
Sure, you can make your peace with the white lies,
  The garden variety deceptions
And deal with the untruths
 And the artful omissions
The distinctions without a difference,
  The what-have-yous
But it's hard to cope with the goddamn lies

You are well familiar with the symphony of deceit
Intimate even, with the ways of evasion

The instinctive lies
 The barefaced ones
The reflexive ones
 The rank denials
The wholly unnecessary ones
 The exaggerations
The diversionary ones
 The outright fabrications

But it's hard to abide with the goddamn lies

And what, you may ask, elevates a lie into that august territory
Moving forward, worthy of that emphatic qualifier?

The texture of a goddamn lie is of the nature of a wound
A goddamn lie aims for, and achieves, infamy
Its essential quality goes far beyond shame
A goddamn lie rises above the highest peaks of untruths
It is of a piece with the surreal, devastating and brazen,
A goddamn lie summons irony, borne as it is out of its bed of hypocrisy
Most of all, a goddamn lie celebrates the lie qua lie
A goddamn lie dances on the grave of its achievement

II.

Politicians, as a matter of course, are avid connoisseurs of the lie
Indeed we expect a close acquaintance of it of most of their breed
Some breathe it with a naturalness that is often unnerving
Grifters too are students and daily practitioners of its corruption
And deploy it in a manner that is all too self-serving
But it is the rarest beast that achieves the goddamn lie

All cultures have their own folklore,
  Often at the expense of others
Founding myths, origin stories,
  Their striking legends soaked in blood

Erecting statues of the colossus,
  Destinies manifest and men's burdens
On terrain where equality, dreams and fond promises
  Meet ceilinged glass
The rhetoric of the powerful
  And the strategy of the shrewd
The hand of god,
  Witness the triumph of the trickster
Freedoms and liberties,
  The laws of grifters

From faulty biology, allusions to race, and sundry nationalisms
History books point to those who heed the conqueror's catechism
But when everything they claim to uphold is written in sand
It's hard to keep things straight when all is goddam lies

Deceit, a playlist

A soundtrack for this evasion. (spotify version)

See previously: Symphony of Deceit

This folktale is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: humour, culture, deception, evasion, lies, observation, perception, strategy, satire, negotiation, life, rogues, covidious, hatchet job, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, toli, poetry

Writing log. April 22, 2022