On A Slant

The world took Dickinson too literally

Now all of truth is at a slant

Tipsy from all the glasses of false cheer

Every time we crack open our phones

But truth was never our strong suit

Stories were our salvation

A god to explain how every rock and stream

Came to rest on the back of a turtle

Stories about who paid the first light bill

And who’ll flip the last switch

The story of a dream could shape the world

Glorious lies that grasped at the truth

Great storytellers may have been the best liars

Now the liars can’t even tell a good story

Ancestors sat ‘round the fire and spoke the universe into being

Our contemporaries light a match to see it all burn

I dream of tickling Atlas’s marble armpits

And making the turtle laugh

Make them tilt the world, just a bit

Shake us loose of our current narrative

Then gather‘round the storytellers, learn why clouds rise in the west

The sun bounces on the horizon

Learn to search for truth again