BEEN LIED TO SO LONG THE TRUTH STICKS OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB

BEEN LIED TO SO LONG THE TRUTH STICKS OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB

Been lied to so long the truth sticks out like a sore thumb

at three in the morning on a deserted highway. I know

some of you think you’re on top of this, but look again,

for all the applause that follows you around like an encore

of professional mourners, you’re not the lightning bolt. You’re

the weathervane, you’re the desk clerk, the hat check girl

that lives like a hot tip of insider trading for pittance

as everyone stops to ask in passing, did time leave any messages?

Nothing for you, I’m sorry, as you pick your spirit up off the floor

in both hands, on either side, like the luggage of death

and make for the door hoping you don’t get caught

as if you’d just stolen the moon like a half-used bar of soap.

Stray images from estranged mindscapes, heralds of smoke

gathering like ghosts at a seance ahead of the field fire

coming this way like a scorched earth policy of scarecrows

seeking lebensraum like real estate agents in the Ukraine.

I’ll take shelter among the stars. Even in the slums of grace

the houses of the zodiac are fireproof. I’ll tune my voice

like a flame to the tongue of serpent fire that’s always

taking the bloom off the candles with their noses pressed

against the window waiting for someone they know well enough

will never come, but have grown accustomed to the absence,

and I’ll sing my heart out like the deathsong of a circumpolar dragon

on the ledge of a high precipice only the truest of lovers

have ever jumped from, scattering the ashes of their shining

on the wind to sow the emptiness with the stars and fireflies

of transmorphic constellations with more than one myth of origin.

I’m sure I’m living someone else’s solitude. What

a palatial abyss! What a hovel this is! Is there

a return address above the door? Does anyone live here

anymore? Am I the only one home? Am I

lingering in the doorway of a pathetic exit

or a grand entrance? Either way I’m lost. I end

where I began, midnight sun, new moon, Venutian Lucifer

under the eyelid of false dawn that turns me on and off

like the lightswitch of a wildflower looking for enlightenment

in the dark heart of a total eclipse that blows the candles out

so it can get a quick glimpse of what it’s waiting for.

Celestial tears of mystic chandeliers aren’t going to water

my roots deeply embedded in star mud or put out

this underground fire that seethes with life

independently of the light like a volcano in the caldera

of an oracular seabed where the dead remind the living

life’s always been more a matter of going to extremes, like breathing,

than hugging shore like a broken mirror clinging to what it reflects,

the white feather of the moon and the nightsea’s tidal regrets.

The truth isn’t sculpted out of Carrara marble like Judaic David

in a body cast with a broken arm Brunelleschi will later sew back on

once Florence isn’t Republican anymore. It’s a cave

that’s always been sand-blasted by upper class hourglasses

of gentrifying lies trying to scrub the meat-eating smell

of the Neanderthals off the walls of their hunting magic

expressed in carbon and red ochre like the secret syllables

for blood and night, to make the place more habitable

for vacationing gazelles with more time on their hands than predators.

The lesser of two lies is still pinging the short straw

on the tine of a tuning fork that bites like a snake

in the middle of a dancefloor where the roses waltz with thorns

to keep their finger on the pulse of a dead cultural life

that makes perfect sense to the unimaginative.

All the white knights have floated away like ice floes and snowmen

that couldn’t take the heat when ice came to fire

as an alternative way of destroying the dragons of the earth

and wept away what little time they had left.

I’ve never been betrayed by anyone or anything

I didn’t believe in first. I’ve cherished the worst with sly ideals.

I once thought I heard the mermaids singing to me

but it was just a pod of killerwhales disciplined by trained seals

to hit the high notes like flying fish out of their depths.

When the glass grows too dark like soot

on the third eye of an imperfectly burning lamp to see

the fireflies and stars deep within, lay the full moon

like a penny on the eyelid of your telescope,

kiss it on the forehead and wish it better dreams next time

than the nightmares it focused on in this life.

Go out to the woods late at night under the early spring stars

and from the bottom of your solitude, without

seeking an answer, speak to the ferocious clarity

of their indifference like a madman drowning in his own eyes.

PATRICK WHITE