Unsentimental
Unsentimental
With my foes I have never been gentle.
After all, every body’s a rental
And will soon be returned.
Every house will be burned.
I face facts — and am not sentimental.
—Tom Riley
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Unsentimental
With my foes I have never been gentle.
After all, every body’s a rental
And will soon be returned.
Every house will be burned.
I face facts — and am not sentimental.
—Tom Riley
Visionary
Folks: my vision you have to affirm!
Inspiration’s the ordinate term
For what moved me to see
All the things shown to me.
While you listen, of course, you will squirm.
—Tom Riley
Mother, May I?
(for Thomas Thoits)
I want to write a sonnet — and I can.
No nun forbids — and so I claim I may.
But these distinctions, may I also say,
Are wholly artificial. Now I plan
To do away with them. Not child but man,
I dare assail the pitiless display
Of bogus rules. I’ll sweep them all away!
They’ll know the fire! They’re in the frying pan
Already! I declare I won’t be bossed.
Like Milton, I attempt no middle flight.
Like Satan, I arise and count no cost.
What’s false is wrong. What’s true alone is right.
The diction-monger’s paradise is lost.
I proved I could — and also proved I might.
—Tom Riley
Opinionated
I’m forming my opinion of you, sir—
A task obnoxious, yes, but necessary
Now while your idiocies are astir.
I’m forming my opinion of you, sir.
Don’t rush to change your posture. As you were.
Of artifice a critic must be wary.
I’m forming my opinion of you, sir—
A task obnoxious, yes, but necessary.
—Tom Riley
The Larger Meaning
At your general presence I stare.
Of my eyes you are surely aware.
What can this gaze portend?
Here’s the gist in the end:
Won’t you get the fuck out of my hair?
—Tom Riley
Late Gift
(for Grace Bozyk)
A day late and a million dollars short,
I’m giving you a kind of birthday gift.
My meters I align, my rhymes I sift.
The Muse indeed I do not need to court—
For, next to you, she’s quite a common sort.
Those she entices always end up stiffed.
Her breath depresses me, but you uplift
With good looks, clever brain, and true support.
What gift will please? Oh, I’m a puzzled cat
Facing the question that this moment poses!
If you had enemies, I’d break their noses.
Your husband, though, can better handle that.
I give you words, though words at last fall flat:
A dozen (plus two more) poetic roses.
Happy Birthday, 2017!
“Gramps” Riley
Metal Unattractive
In tight skirts, she presented her ass
To her thirty-boy seventh-grade class.
Did sap rise in their pants?
Did she merit a glance?
No, they all took a resolute pass.
—Tom Riley
Not Yet, Anyhow
Miss, your language is mindless and crude,
And your habits are boundlessly rude.
But I’ve earnestly tried
To observe the bright side—
And at least you don’t drool in my food.
—Tom Riley
The Lord Has His Shepherds
They’re always telling me what God intends.
Amazingly, he thinks the way they do,
Never indeed dissenting from the view
That they adopt. Oh, they’re far more than friends
Of God! They are his guides. Toward proper ends
They shepherd him — and he is grateful, too,
That he has chanced on guys who have a clue.
On them the judge of all the earth depends.
Anyhow, that’s the state of things suggested
By the way they’re conveying their decrees.
Is it a Weltanschauung to be tested?
Or should I merely drop to aging knees?
By skepticism they will not be bested.
Still, something in my center disagrees.
—Tom Riley
Coffee Conversation
Your coffee conversation
is about as stimulating as
my breakfast beer.
—Tom Riley
