LIAR

I’m not the criminal liar,

the one who says this check is covered.

Nor am I the gossipy liar

with mouth awash in fabricated rumors.

There’s a little of the ad-man liar in me,

especially when I put pen to paper.

Poetic license, after all, is written in hyperbole.

I don’t think I’m the evil liar,

none of this, no problem,

the driving’s fine

when sheets of black ice

coat the roadways.

And I try not to be the guilty liar,

red-faced, who says,

“I did not break the vase.”

I do my best not to break vases

in the first place.

I admit I am the lover liar,

though not of the cheating kind.

Not having seen them all,

I can still proclaim you

the most beautiful of women.

With nothing to compare it to,

my love is clearly the deepest,

the strongest, the longest-lived.

You prefer that kind of lie.

Or, at least, you say you do.

John Grey   

John Grey has been published recently in the Echolocation, Santa Fe Poetry Review and Caveat Lector with work upcoming in Clark Street Review, Poem and the Evansville Review