Wednesday, July 29, 2009

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

I have too much time to sit here
and just as much to think,
for in my ruminations
I expose my armor's chinks.

The broad facade of this "perfect" life
is laced with cracks and holes,
and the time I take to stop kidding
myself is when I regain control.

My vocabulary's practiced;
my turns of phrase, an art;
my stories have a certain flair
and have right from the start.

I choose my muse to serve me,
but it sometimes refuses to amuse,
this random course my ideas take
are paths I rarely choose.

I've had my fun and lived through pain
as others have, I'm sure,
and placed each in this prompted verse,
thinking my soul was cured.

But, reality is a pointed sword,
an epee straight and true,
and has a way to cut the fat
to render the truth from you.

So you paint your mind with
a palette wide and hope your colors pop,
but you speak your heart in black and white
and pray it never stops.

Some people will thank you for your candor,
and other will look askance,
and you hope to really sell your tale,
if given half the chance.

But those around you know the truth,
you have that way with words,
a story teller par excellence,
the best they've ever heard.

How do you struggle with the facts
in words that they'll believe?
With that imagination,
how can you not deceive?

A writer walks this tightrope
a tether drawn and taut,
a balance of his verity
not blanched by words distraught.

If you cannot dissuade yourself
to keep your convictions strong,
then every word that escapes your soul
will invariably come out wrong.

So trust your instinct and your heart,
they're all that's left to you,
for to color your world with honestly,
you must, to yourself, be true.

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