Honed Honesty

Presents freely the manufactured gilded edge
of manipulated persuasion
opposite the hand-honed
sharpness of truth.

Honesty asks…

Does the brook feign the river
thinking the ocean blind?

Does a sparrow imitate the hawk's dive
for celebrated death?

Does an orphan pick the pocket of the rich
envisioning wealth?

Honesty thinks not.

For truth is truth,
surrounding forces of false pride,
making clear agony's face of contorted lines,
even as deceit's buried conscience
fosters further layers of deception.

Honesty knows betrayal.

Self-loathing flaunts disguises
made either in one man's fairy-tale heaven
or another man's angelic hell.

Honesty sees your contempt…

Knows the studied rehearsed smile
covering molten fueled hate
cleverly shadowed by your laughter.

Honesty knows not duplicity…

That obsessive quest for adulation
blatantly hiding beneath your sneer,
where the arsenal of subterfuge
festers amongst ambition's price.

But fear not your suffering of lies…

Even as contaminants' false essence radiates
like nuclear waste biding its time,
ebbing its tide toward shores of honesty's harvest.

For to your surprise…

You'll realize deceit eventually finds defeat gentle
when discovered beside compassion's scabbard,
the hand-honed
edge of truth.