Grey lies are stretched truths –
Through slightly inaccurate –
Meaningless details
07.23.19 – 08.20.19
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Copyright by Minh Tan on listed dated of completion.
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Notes to this poem…
There’s this concept of “white” lies, in English, where you can lie by altering whatever you want in what you were saying, but that, supposedly, it won’t make a difference in life to anyone except the person being told the lie, to whom it will make things better than if they had been told the truth.
Well, I’m suggesting a more ethical version of that by going to a grey lie, where you don’t get to lie any way you want, just by stretching the truth through some slightly inaccurate, meaningless details, rather than some black to white change of facts that someone did or did not do something, or something did or did not happen. You tell what someone did or didn’t do, or something happened or didn’t happen, truthfully. You just change the extent of it. That’s my idea of a “grey lie”.
The W-series poems comprise mostly of haiku or tanka composed during walks I took on the portion of Halifax’s waterfront known as the Harbourwalk, during the warmer months of 2018 & 2019, when the Seabridge was in place.
Minh Tan's Old Poetry 
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