Prologue
These
are not black and whites.
They
live together.
I.
The
actor spends a career learning
To
lie truthfully.
Does
their capacity to do so
Spring
from the innate duplicity
Of
their own lives?
Are
these celebrated artists of welcomed deceit
Just pathetic liars in reality?
II.
Every
day
Across
the globe,
People
are parroting,
With
great conviction,
The
things they have been told.
To
this, they add what they sincerely see,
Although
infused with
Distortion,
bias, poor logic, limited knowledge and
Lots
of filling-in-of-the-blanks.
III.
There
are so many blanks in life.
There
are so many unknowns.
The
mystery of who we are inside,
Where
we came from and where we are going,
Can
be more elusive than the search for God.
Being
in the present of any given moment
Can
terrify more than the certainty of our mortality.
And
so, to fend us from utter incapacitation,
We
construct a world of almost-fact
That
satisfies our need for certainty and
Reconciles
sloppy thinking.
All
this,
All
of it,
A
truthful lie when we speak it.
IV.
Lie
and Truth met at a club one night.
One
was easy, the other genteel and well-dressed.
Truth
accidentally spilled Lie's drink at the bar.
He
offered to buy her another.
They
fell into conversation.
Intrigue.
Opposites
attract.
It
was wrong and delicious.
Lie
had too much to drink;
Truth
saw an opening and betrayed himself.
He
drove her home.
After
all, she was in no condition and he was a gentleman.
On
the living room sofa,
They
grew gradually, irresistibly closer
Like
human magnets.
By
the time dawn peeked through the window,
Truth had made hot love.
Lie
had moving sex.
Strange
bedfellows that could never work as a couple
But
who hook up
More
than they want to admit.
V.
In
the work of actors who do it with elegance,
Their
lying truths show us who we are.
At
what expense this comes to the artist,
Only drugs,
suicide, divorce, and calamity know.
Some
performers are temporary healer-shamans
Who
sink into Ego and Narcissus
The
moment the last word is spoken,
The curtain is drawn,
And
the light is turned off.
You
bump into them at the market some day
Under
the glare of the mundane;
Their
arrogance, shallowness, and vanity leaving you to wonder
“Where
did that beautiful creature I saw the other night disappear to?”
And
there is such loss.
VI.
Even
the selfish artist has a profound gift to give the world.
Whether
the artist's process feeds himself nourishment
Or is a temporary escape from scratching ghosts
Broken parts
And unrequited hungers
Is another matter.
Broken parts
And unrequited hungers
Is another matter.
But
their lies of creation heal even when they are falling apart.
VII.
Every
generation claims
The
world is in a more dangerous and precarious place
Than
it was before.
If
not a truthful lie this time around,
It's
true because the gross dangers of bombs and war
Have
been replaced by a threat to our very willingness
To
know what is real.
Pitchmen
and Propagandists
Gladly
step in to tell us what to believe
And
far too many are willing to be lead by the nose
To
whatever fetid waters these extremists
Wish
to take us.
In
this UpsideDownWorld
We
blame the poor and worship the rich.
We
are more passionately engaged in the battle between sport teams
Then
we are in the battle for social justice.
Our
eyes are keenly set on “getting a good deal” someplace
Even
while bankers lift the wallet out of our back pockets.
Epilogue
And
that,
That
is all my lying truthfully,
Because
what is real is surely greater than what I see.
I
do hope and pray though
That
my perception is clearer than the average;
That,
unlike the actor, I can share
A
truth that comes from who I really am
And
not through the compulsion to become someone else
To
have something to give you.
Some
nights,
When
I spill your drink,
I
am Truth.
And
other nights,
When
I am scared and desperate
Wearing
a little too much cologne
And
hungry for someone to call me “pretty”,
I
am Lie.
Truth
and Lie are not black and white.
There
is no gray area between them.
They
are the gray area.
