Deception Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

He forms advertisements but switch your mind elsewhere
He already persuaded Eve to sell apples, and
that you are Marsian, that you have eleven fingers,
that the crack in the vase of hope is only a decor.
Look! He displays yellow teeth as white ones,
he offers you a sublingual tablet just to feel
as Adonis instead of lame and blackened Hephaestus,
as the century’s winner who has a house plus water.

He lifts the politicians to present them tall, he fixes
their make-up to present them sad in the funerals of fans.
He teaches a virgin to imply yes, when she says perhaps,
also a diplomat to imply no, when he says maybe; also
how the one deceives the other, sometimes the opposite.

He says he stepped on the moon before Armstrong,
(Studio showed him with four shades, instead of one,
his footprint has depth of twenty points instead of two) .
Now he debilitates towers rather than ruin them down,
he promotes cleanliness than counterterrorism.
Yes, he sells flowers (seedless) and puts thorns on them.

Do you sell the soul? He will find for you a devil to buy it.

He deserves a fine by satire, or comedy’s forgiveness?
Yet, he avoids looking straight at the sun of Cyprus,
not to lose his own sight and the art of deception;
he would become a clown with a bitter sigh inside.



© Joseph S. Josephides