You Can Tell By The Eyes

July 15 2020

They say you can tell by the eyes.

The mouth, composed in its rictus smile.

The too-tight handshake

held for too much time.

The clammy palm

that puts you in mind

of fast food

and hair product.

But when you look up

into those two dead eyes beneath hooded lids

there's no mistaking the truth.

The con-manning grifter

the scammer and trickster

the hustling chiseller

who would swindle his mom.

They say the eyes

are a window into the soul.

But what about those lost souls

who are hollow and shameless,

have made a fine art

of serving only themselves?

They also say

we are bad at discerning lies

that trust is our default.

But there is no disguising the emptiness

behind the counterfeit

the phony mask.

So look a stranger in the eye

to measure the man.

Who can't laugh at himself

or feel your pain.

Who may have been born that way

or made by circumstance

or both.

Whom you sometimes glance

in the bathroom mirror

at the start of a bad day.

Or its end;

sweaty and soiled and frazzled

from the world out there

the maddening day-to-day.

This wasn't going to be a political poem, but any discerning reader will see the influence of Donald Trump: who is the ultimate conman, malignant narcissist, and likely psychopath. Or maybe, with the reference to hair product, the equally oleaginous Donald Trump Jr. While the dead eyes with the hooded lids definitely belong to Trump's reptilian adviser Stephen Miller, an equally soulless and culpable careerist and enabler.

But I think it may be more about how the world can leave us temporarily jaded, cynical, hard.

And perhaps, in this age of Corona, I was thinking about masks. The real masks, of course. But also the masks we make ourselves. Because it's true about insincere smiles. It's true about eyes. And it's true about our default to the truth. We can be easy marks. But if you have any self-respect, it's still better to be the victim than the culprit.