Once I was mugged for a lie, and I gave it;
the robber had stolen me blind —
and storing it then, in a holder to save it,
first looked it once over to find —
that the counterfeit currency shined with a luster,
enticing the ugly with greed,
And the wheels of commerce it squealed to grease
with a hymn to dishonesty's creed.
So the spender then spent it, expecting returns,
investing in hopes it was real,
But the lie couldn't lie when detected at last
— it could tell only truth with a squeal
And that squeal with all that a sound could reveal
let out with its wail of pain
the barest of honesty none could conceal
— which even a lie couldn't feign.
"Extortion, my mother, had given me birth!
so that I, in her game of distortion,
might flatter her misery all thru the earth,
despite that my birth was abortion!"
And the screaming and screeching it gave in that voice,
in that voice, being shriller than shrill,
the more stranger was made when recalling the fact
of its birth being placid and still.
