19 (Dirt & Lies)

wake to a sleep in a garden of flesh,
scent intertwined, loam, decay, the smell
of smoke from bridges burned, the fetid
miasma of fallow fields left too long
unturned, until even the dead can’t
lie there

detach yourself, a moment, from truth,
look closely at the lie you’re about to
swallow like a magic piece of mushroom,
a revelation, or only a prelude to
dark, the first discordant notes in
a deathly threnody

the truth, harder to digest,
rests just beyond the reach of
reason, a house in the distance, full of
scents and sounds and flavors and flesh,
the point where deception, desecration,
devoured you,
completed you

at what stage does the lie set you free and
the truth leave you bound in chains?

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN