White Teeth
White Teeth
He possesses white teeth he can grin with—
But he has little left he can win with.
“I’m diminished, I guess,”
He contends. Don’t say yes.
He was never that smart to begin with.
—Tom Riley
White Teeth
He possesses white teeth he can grin with—
But he has little left he can win with.
“I’m diminished, I guess,”
He contends. Don’t say yes.
He was never that smart to begin with.
—Tom Riley
Darkness
I converse in a language unknown
With the darkness that says I’m alone.
I protest in despair
that the darkness is there,
But the darkness does not like my tone.
—Tom Riley
Barbarisms
Barbarisms infected his Spanish.
All his feminine nouns became mannish.
(That, it’s clear, is a sin.)
Oh, he tried discipline—
But these usages just wouldn’t vanish.
—Tom Riley
Gordian Neck
“Put your neck pain forever to bed!
Random movements you’ll no longer dread!
Hey, it’s easy! You’ll see.”
Really? How can this be?
“Very simple. We’ll cut off your head!”
—Tom Riley
Percy Precocious
In his youth, he was taken for bright.
So he says. Has he got that tale right?
Maybe so. Maybe not.
Does it matter a lot?
No. We now know his intellect’s slight.
—Tom Riley
Doctrinal Drainage
How dare you,
Professor, drain all the divinity
From my thunderstorm?
—Tom Riley
Empty Talk
The noise, sir, of your empty talk
Is irritating me in full.
We walk the path we have to walk.
The noise, sir, of your empty talk
Booms on my path and makes me balk.
I can’t endure the lame and dull.
The noise, sir, of your empty talk
Is irritating me in full.
—Tom Riley
The Less-Than-Final Solution
Final answers, you fiercely contend,
Are the bomb, though they briefly offend.
Your conviction is strong,
but you’ve got it all wrong.
The strange truth is that things never end.
—Tom Riley