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.
