In Authenticity

(Statistically, we actually hear and retain only about fifty percent of what is communicated to us ~ and about eighty percent of that is not the words themselves, but the mannerisms with which they were offered)

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Recorded Reading: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sekhyldlviy75wx/in%20authenticity%20.mp3?dl=0

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In Authenticity

Though I’m speaking calm and clear
I can’t control what you hear

And by that same hearing, choose
Whether I win or I lose

The coveted reward
Of your fond regard

While but truth I simply say
You might hear a power play

Or a statement ego of
Thinking myself you above

Imagine I advantage try
To finagle with a lie

Bringing you to falsehood’s brink
In ignominy to sink

You might try to find an insult,
Insinuations of guilt

Or otherwise might suspect me
Of base venal flattery

And if you can’t figure out
What my ‘game’ is all about

Might decide the wisest way
Simply be to stay away

From such deep mystification
As evades classification

While I’m just singing like a bird
You’re suspecting every word

Thinking it you harm denote
Out of context then to quote

Rattling belated sabre
With some sympathetic neighbor

Finding evil, bad and wrong
In my affirmative song

I wish ’twere not for, often, so
Those in authenticity go

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Among us, poets are ill paid. In order to continue her work, this one currently lives in her minivan, on an income of a fraction of our nation’s poverty level. If her work has moved, enabled or uplifted you, your contribution to this effort may be made at: https://www.gofundme.com/kx4xka-are-you-a-patron-of-the-arts

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