Telling Lies
from Mata Hari And The Music Box
The widow touting sprigs of heather,
pocket full of centimes.
And Sanskrit couture,
a bodice of seductive words.
The art of telling lies.
The burgundy velvet stomach
yields its lie-detector,
a slot machine confidant:
my own spiritual engineering
filled with carefully folded tickets.
I slump to a bench in the Place Dauphine.
Each ticket (to a dance) void,
on the back a lie (in her childish writing),
folded tight. One, she said,
holds a time and place.
The clockwork raga winds to a halt,
the little idol protruding, stopped,
waiting, suddenly wooden.
A puppet cranked
by my own crude mechanics.
I take a ticket - on it an unbearable lie.
My love for her is love
for something passed, set down
in black breves on a stave,
a figurehead peeling paint,
it's lignification.
My love was love for something man-made.
To read on and find a mere victim
tumbling from the quai de Conti
or to never know, to never
let artifice die, to drag
back the lies from the light …
I paperboat the Seine
with fluttering tickets.
Page(s) 40-41
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