I Heard it Through the Grapevine

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

Stories of joy and hope, told in faith
And honour to a "trustworthy" being.
Manipulated and twisted now,
Told again to multiple ears, taught
To catch the discriminating words,
To banish the truth in flocks and herds.

Tales of love and bliss retold to me,
Dating to a time of war and hate.
A secondary source of information
Woven through the trellace of history.
Distorted in age and betrayal,
The truth covers away, weak and frail.

I heard his memoirs at the path's end.
The story folded by everybody's hands,
Wrung out and ironed smooth as well,
Disintegrated by the clenched teeth
Of so many lists with rumours to start,
And so many victims with bleeding hearts.

I heard it via the grapevine, where
Words are washed away by the tides of
The gullible seas. The waters, they flow
And return with an altered, more drastic
Tale to tell. We humans control the tides,
We choose between truth and lies.

It's up to us to say what we hear,
Or not say anything at all. When
Our hearts break and our tears flow freely,
We have to think back on the past.
It's happened before. Many a time
Because I heard it through the grapevine.