LYING PHOTOS.

A WOMAN LOOKING THROUGH OLD PHOTOS OF HER AND HER EX LOVER.

The camera doesn’t
Lie, your mother would
Say, one of her pearls

Of wisdom, she’d utter
Now and again, like if
You kill a spider it will

Rain. The camera doesn’t
Lie, but he did all the time,
He breathed in lies like

Oxygen, he’d keep lies in
The air like some juggler
Of balls. The camera doesn’t

Lie, but photos do; they are
Captured lies for all the
World to see, only you

Didn’t see until the end,
Never saw them in the
Photographs until it was

Too late. The box of black
And white and coloured
Photographs is open. You

Take them out one by one
And peer at them; the ones
Containing you and him

Together; the ones taken
In Paris, Amsterdam, New
York, the ones that captured

You smiling and holding his
Hand or kissing him, the
Photos that others took

Like conspirators in the
Big lie. You take the lying
Photographs out one by one,

Tear them into small pieces,
And drop them in the garbage
Can. One photo has him

Standing there with his arm
Around your waist and the
Other on his hip with an awful

Grin and you gazing at the
Camera full of laughter, yet
Already in the eyes, something

Was beginning to dawn, some
Doubt was starting to show in
The eyes's stare. Some anxiety

Was there. The camera doesn’t
Lie, but photos do all the time,
Like those that Stalin had altered

And changed to eliminate those
Who had stood there once in
Photographs before their falls and

Crimes and his lies. The box is empty
Now, the photographs all torn and
Cast away, but they’ll still exist in
Your memory until your dying day.

Reviews

[Floundering About]

This is refreshing. I like the somewhat cold voice. The last line bothers me somehow, as the rest of the poem uses conversational phrasing, but "until your dying day" seems to come from an entirely different aesthetic.
But really, I love it. The sentences being interrupted across stanzas seem to create sharp movements, especially at "will / Rain." and "awful / Grin".

[Coyote Poetry]

So much wisdom of old in this poem. I like the photo. Each lines added to a very good ending to the poem. I like this poem a lot. You told a very good story.
Coyote