People Of Pretense

I’ve never been where they tread, chasing mirage through desert storm. I look at evasive eyes perennially petrified, see their void vision fixed fast on fantasy, shroud of devious dust spreads on sneaky people. Gleam of opalescent oasis out of sight, they wane in wasteland like shriveled shadows of skeletal trees, forgotten they were once green, but I know they’ve lost their roots, turned into wooden people. Layer on layer the dubious design of deception morphs into motif of masquerade mask, the chameleon skin fashions the faces with smoke-screen, I can’t see through. People of pretense create cloaks of charade the rays of reality thwarted, so they make obscure onyx world their own, don’t discern they turn into ambiguous antiques, but I know for I walk in the museum of masked people. They build bastion in enveloping emptiness of abysmal abyss of vagabond valleys, no window opens on the sapphire sky secluded, sunburst sequined sense eradicated doesn’t illumine their insipid isolation, their marooned minds remain fossilized in dark dereliction, become slate slices of starless night, don’t know why all the dreams disappear, but I know no rainbow ribbon wraps their remote heart, for they’ve become opaque people.