“Chain of Lies” by Danil Rudoy is a 2019 poem from Love Is Poetry. A failed audition spills into a midnight quarrel where accusations about love, writing and poetry become another performance before tenderness interrupts the chain.
Chain of Lies
It’s five to midnight, and she’s been drinking.
Her play audition did not go well.
I offered rescue; she went for sinking
And set her mind now on raising hell.
She resurrects from the undercover
And fires, having her power staked:
“You’re such a tragedy as a lover,
All that you’ve taken for real, I faked!”
Her face portrays quintessential fury,
Her eyes resemble a gaping void…
How dares any theatric jury
Keep such a natural unemployed?
With every second her lips get tighter,
So do the lines of her bitter role:
“You’re such a travesty as a writer,
All that you think you made up, you stole!”
I smile, remembering our adventure;
She takes it wrong and begins to craze.
At last. It’s time for a real danger:
Across the living room flies a vase.
I dodge it, thanks to a stretch of sinews;
The shards do get me below the sleeve.
I’d pull the curtain, but she continues:
“You’re merely nothing, and if I leave
You’ll perish sooner than I will know it.
And let that not be a bad surprise:
You’re such a misery as a poet,
All that you wrote is a chain of lies!”
The stroke of midnight is filled with rancor.
She’s sobbing, desperate and aloof.
The chain has tethered her to an anchor:
I have to sever it with a truth.
She acts no longer: an evil goddess
Has fallen down from her rage’s crest.
I hug her warmly and say with fondness:
“My star, this is how I love you best!”
March 9th–10th 2019
Publication
“Chain of Lies” appears in Love Is Poetry: Rhyming Poems About Love Life, in The Endless Day.
Performance and truth
The failed audition echoes through the quarrel as the woman’s speech becomes a succession of roles and accusations. “Lover,” “writer” and “poet” are all put on trial. At midnight the title becomes an image of bondage, and the closing embrace answers performance with direct affection.
Text and citation
Copyright © Danil Rudoy. The poem is published here as the author’s canonical text. Short excerpts may be quoted for criticism, scholarship, teaching and literary discussion with attribution to Danil Rudoy and a link to this page. Full reproduction requires separate permission.