This poem first appeared as The Naked Truth.
Perhaps this is more than you wish to hear
That your origins began eons before
you were assigned this body
That people around you are holograms or
laboratory-created hominoids,
When you voiced questions there were no answers
Until you stopped asking and simply accepted
everything you were told
It came at you from all directions
Out of the mouths of those assigned to raise you up
When, in fact, they wielded the power to hold you down
There is no blame; they knew no better and
some perhaps wondered themselves
yet could not speak aloud
for fear of being forever silenced –
The words and images and strictures
oozed and screamed at you
from boxes plugged into the wall
and from projection screens
and the heavy-lidded eyes of others who, like you,
had stopped asking questions
content to swallow basketsful of lies and stories
that seemed to be about you, but not really
You may not want to hear any of this
Even though you have flirted
with these possibilities, yes?
Perhaps while you were a child,
a bundle of curiosity and delight
swaddled in a blanket woven of
distortion and interference
Shaking your head in disbelief will not dislodge
the naked truth now come a-calling
You have peeked around shadowy corners,
peered into mirrors upon mirrors,
ranted and railed against enemies
perceived and real, within and without
You armed yourself with a small butter knife
when the digging required a corps of engineers
wearing headlamps and operating
heavy earth-and-sky-moving equipment
You signed up for a mission
that has taken down lesser beings,
It is all too easy to slip back into the fool’s paradise
our consensual somnambulism helped to create
It is time to acknowledge you know this to be true:
In your quietest moments,
in places and times where you sense
that angels and fairies and orbs of rainbow light
dance and sing songs of jubilation,
As you splay yourself upon the earth
and synchronize her heartbeat
unto yours and feel and know
and remember your own soul
coalescing with the vast, immeasurable
essence of All-That-Is,
You have caught glimmers of truth
as they gently swarm your face
and tickle your ears,
As fragile veils that had mired you
in perpetual blindness dissolve
and you feel a new breeze
licking at your lips and
sweetly brushing against your flesh
Honor those moments,
those star visitors, that moon,
those intense beams of sunlight
that warm and carry you
from the wearisome plodding
of the worldly and mundane
Your heart yearns to be heard,
now, and forever
This truth is unimpeachable
Even though today, of all days,
This may be more than you wish to hear
words divinely wrought 