Poems
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

Flimflam

 

Make-believe is typically benign, even fun; insincere talk is not.

Crookedness breeds duplicity, gathers sad intentions. Separates

Jugglery, other misinformation, dissembling. Dithering remains

Cagey. No shiftiness ever saved, let alone elevated, needy folks.

 

Chicanery, among forms of falsification, also proves unreliable.

Subterfuge, underhandedness, crockery, foxy ways, depend on

Cozenage, that canard reining in scuttlebutt, or relying on dirt.

Eternally, that inclination to mislead others causes heart break.

 

Prevarication, on balance, never reaches past proven mendacity,

Under no circumstances stretches outside of garden taradiddles,

Can’t grasp hints beyond obliquity. Its recondite quality equals

Half-truths able to influence sheeple, to poorly bear upon lives.

 

All in all, dissimulation’s trickery, is faking plus double-dealing.

Such verbal legerdemain, spoken or written hocus-pocus, nearly

Always dispenses jiggery-pokery among blameless individuals;

That “gamesmanship” endures stubbornly divisive and slippery.

 

 

 

 

Exordium

 

Fresh starts, those introductory remarks occupying books’ front matters,

Tend to encourage few thoughts of other tomes, any external relevance.

On balance, whether “foreword,” “preface,” or “prologue,” openings

Ordinarily, point toward main content, not peripheries. For example,

Most readers customarily overlook such portions as flyleaves,

Copyrights, and dedications no matter their perspicacity.

 

Consider, entire page cornurbations become reserved for “insight,”

Revealing no interior wisdom, nor select internal remarks. Their

Duty’s avoiding hagiographies, jolting loftier ideas to oblivion.

Really, they’re flawed, built from cliche wems rarely hiding

Audiences from rhetorical squall lines, from garish climes;

Those “essential” components offer trifling significance.

 

 

 

 

Unflappable

 

Some persons are not easily upset. Rather than engage in hard-boiled conflict, they

Whisper fight. Such affectionate, light-hearted interactions deescalate tension even

When involving sweet summer children.

 

Afterall, heated, loud confrontations never le to self-control, to relaxed talk, to

Happily ever after. Self-possessed persons, mostly, value levelheadedness over

Grandiose appointments.

 

Minor annoyances can be articulated when whispering nose-to-nose. Arguments can be

Laid-back, insouciant, funny, and safe; “soft startups” to conflict-manufactured fidelity,

Also, to fondness.

 

Further, when we’re confident, not uncertain, it’s possible to sail nefs across skirmishes,

To delight in our partners’ absurdities, to laugh o’er inanities introduced to our lives and

Sensibilities.

 

Rate this poetry.

Copyright is reserved by the author. Please do not reproduce any part of this article without consent.