THE STENCH OF TRUTH

The stench of truth
Shaven off its husk
Fitted to a frame
Anchored in reality
Breathed into the air
Relieving the burden
Of bold and white lies.

The toll of that bell
for what it rings,
Its pitched dissonance
Rocking and rolling,
End over end,
Unceasing chaos calls
Of warring Liberty and
Her Sister; Imprisonment.

Factions in opposing camps
Vested to ideology
Buried in debts
Of human thought
Forever in deadly embrace.
To kill or be killed.

Winning is death
For both and neither.
While truth lives
And fiction dies
To be reborn
To die a thousand deaths.

Like hope from a fractured cry
Forever its piercing words
Drowned in the battle hymn
Reshaped anew;
Like time, recurring.

What is in man
That bends the truth
lies like a serpent
Cold hearted and
Weakened from the kill
Yet hungry for more.

What is it?

Life goes on
As lies proliferate
The Sun bakes
The breeze soothes
The leaves whisper
The petals fall
With regret.

Once again stench rises
To relieve the land
Of these untruths
As truth fills the air
To ease the burden.
The cycle renews,
The earth breathes.