Confessions of a Con Artist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Here’s a cautionary tale today, inspired by my late mother’s capacity for dreaming that enhanced rather than detracted from an earthy wisdom.

Everyone loves to dream. Ah, but beware of substituting dreams for reality; that way, heartache looms unless you can stay awake.

Not everyone who shares your life will share your dreams; don’t shut them out.

Dream on...but in trying for more and better we should take care not to undervalue what we have.

This poem is a kenning.

CONFESSIONS OF A CON ARTIST

At the breakfast table,
we’ll always chat over the cereal
and you’ll ask me
how you look today, what to say
when colleagues
at the office ask about us,
let anxious hands
spoil your hair and put it to me
that I don’t really care

What can I say? You know
as well as I do how office politics
turns on speculation,
feeding on a morbid imagination
that would sacrifice
a best friend to a conflagration
of malice dressed up
to the nines in whatever fashion
creates the best impression

At the supper table,
you always tell me about your day
and suggest we get away
from all this, suggest an early night
and kisses on your pillow
so I can start to show how I feel,
and let’s be carried away
on a rising tide of shelf clock ticks,
spoils of simulated sex

Call me, Dream Maker, if you will;
better still, make your own, get real

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009