Thursday, September 5, 2019

Smoke and mirrors




your words are smoke
elegantly cursive, seductive
at first sight.  your shadow
is gilded by moon-silver
and burning lies are painted 
festive sparklers to match your coat

you play with time, but time needs no coat 
to reveal your true desires under smoke
like curtains daggered to sides, faint
outline of you, plain to see, rusted
stripped away as when one holds shiver-
ing hands of a dying loved one.   shadows

grow from your eyes, spilling roses-
you drop your mask, unbuttoning coat     
showing me your mirror.   I am silver
by guilt, but here are words buried broke
awaiting light & forgiveness
and above all, love in all its colors




Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight.  Title inspired by our past poetics on this theme.  Join us when the pub doors open at 3pm EST.

20 comments:

  1. I love how all changes once the cloaks of lies are gone... It's a good thing when we can accept the truths, and see beyond the smoke and mirrors

    ReplyDelete
  2. That’s a coincidence, Grace! I heard the expression ‘smoke and mirrors’ in a BBC radio play this afternoon on the way to the vet with Luna!
    I like the idea of smoke being ‘elegantly cursive’, as if writing a message, in contrast to the burning lies, which are ‘painted festive sparklers’, and love the lines:
    ‘you drop your mask, unbuttoning coat
    showing me your mirror. I am silver
    by guilt, but here are words buried broke’,
    a tragic description of a magician-lover.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A portrait of true love, for sure Grace - beautifully and oh so tenderly painted...

    ReplyDelete
  4. "shadows grow from your eyes, spilling roses" what a great line, Grace. I take that as the rose-colored glasses fall off

    ReplyDelete
  5. There truly is many colors and layers

    ReplyDelete
  6. I like your description of being a mirror: "I am silver
    by guilt, but here are words buried broke
    awaiting light & forgiveness"

    ReplyDelete
  7. "stripped away as when one holds shivering hands of a dying loved one" - a very compelling line. Bare, naked vulnerability. A lovely write.

    ReplyDelete
  8. smoke and mirrors one hides and one reveals - I like the hope that there is forgiveness and above all light in all colors.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is incredibly deep and gorgeously rendered, Grace 💖💖 Especially like; "you play with time, but time needs no coat 
    to reveal your true desires under smoke
    like curtains daggered to sides." Wow!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very well done Grace! I love your ending...
    but here are words buried broke
    awaiting light & forgiveness
    and above all, love in all its colors

    ReplyDelete
  11. A wonderful wind from the apparent and untrusted to the intimate and true. Whose smoke and mirror? And what love doesn't sprout from false apparencies?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you. "My time is yet not come : but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil" (St. John, 7:6-7)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ai am sorry about that; the profile image on this account of mine had to be changed, and that is a test and try like affair, and the border on the image above will not appear. This data god, one has made, is not polite.

      Delete
    2. And; why the heck is the border wider on the top? Is that a sign of persecution, from the side of the data god? Am aI paranoid, thinking that data god is unfriendly?

      Delete
  13. This has so many wonderful layers of emotion...love consists of both smoke and mirrors and the trick is to figure out which is what.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Profoundly moving poem, Grace. I enjoyed picking up on aspects of both the sestina and your use of homophones. That part about holding the hand of a dying loved one really got to me.

    ReplyDelete
  15. What an interesting verse of secrets , unsaid words and love in between..

    PS : Just noticed that I am in the same city as you.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Amaya's Smoke and Mirrors prompt was wonderful wasn't it? And this is so lovely and layered. Wonderful to see that it is love that can be underneath the layers to be the essential truth when all is stripped away. Our Socieites, uor religion, and especially important - our individual relationships are so burdened by survival and political imperatives that we lose the root of joy.
    This brought mixed tears from just the verdant loveliness and recognition...
    "I am silver
    by guilt, but here are words buried broke
    awaiting light & forgiveness
    and above all, love in all its colors"

    ReplyDelete
  17. like a cat confidently offering a bird at the back door to a bemused mistress... I want to show you my Smoke and Mirrors piece.
    https://lonagynt.wordpress.com/2019/08/23/btt-63-walking-the-dog-on-the-fairway-at-9-pm/

    ReplyDelete

I try my best to reciprocate comments and visits.
I allow anonymous comments if you have difficulty posting them. Thank you & have a good day!!!