Strong Talk
“Hey, you’re full of shit!” Biden will dare
To exclaim. “Plus, your question’s not fair!
Won’t do pushups? Fuck you!
Dooby-dooby-doo-doo.
May I have a quick sniff at your hair?”
–Tom Riley
(Hideous Never Trumper David Frum thinks Creepy Joe looks “terrific.”)
Something Dark
Something dark, you say, waits for us all
Beyond churchified tales far too tall.
At your claim I deflate
Not at all. If that’s fate,
My dismay at the fact will be small.
–Tom Riley
An Echo, Not a Choice
Trump’s a guy Chicom bosses deplore
Nowadays. “He is racist – and more!”
So they angrily shout.
And an echo rings out
From most every damn media whore.
–Tom Riley
Restrained Revolutionary
There are lengths to which Bernie won’t go,
Although urged on by bro after bro,
In pursuit of the dream
Some have labeled extreme.
Thus he’s lost — to the idiot Joe.
–Tom Riley
How’s the Patient?
Creepy Joe Biden: how far gone is he?
What distance has his dire dementia crept?
It hasn’t crept at all. Instead, it’s leapt
beyond most every normal boundary.
The nation’s keen observers must agree,
of course, that Joe has always been inept–
the sort of clown who in the crap has stepped
throughout a long career of vanity.
But now the famous plagiarist is drooling
before the waiting camera’s steady stare.
He is long past his panicked handlers’ schooling:
he doesn’t know he needs it, doesn’t care.
He blabs away, defying every ruling.
Get back! Get back! He’s hot to sniff your hair!
–Tom Riley
Amor et Mors
“How I love
nature!” he cried just before
the rattlesnake struck.
–Tom Riley
Mealtime on a Post-Christian Isle
I had some Irish ale for breakfast, Pat.
It made me think of serpents you expelled
from the green land you conquered. Heartless, that–
and pointless. Then with snakes the ocean swelled–
and overflowed in other regions. Smelled
the future, did you? Ophiolatry
retains its strength and never has withheld
its beautiful, malicious subtlety.
Now when forked tongues protrude, folks cry: “Pick me!
Pick me! Let me be nourishment to you!
Constriction I’ll endure quite easily!
Digestion too will only make me new!”
Such is the foolishness this world’s displayin’.
I need some whiskey in my beer. Just sayin’.
–Tom Riley
Villanelle of the Great God Panic
We must embrace the panic of the day.
Eternal verities do not exist—
And boundless fear need never go away.
Because both black and white yield space to gray,
Because of high, shrill cry and upraised fist,
We must embrace the panic of the day.
Contrary sayings we must never say.
Against such stuff our media has hissed.
And boundless fear need never go away
If the wrong questions don’t undo dismay.
Before you breathe a word, consult the list.
We must embrace the panic of the day
And play the same that we are urged to play.
It doesn’t matter if we’re proud or pissed.
And boundless fear need never go away!
Can we be shaped? Why, aren’t we made of clay?
If some demur, the Zeitgeist will insist.
We must embrace the panic of the day—
And boundless fear need never go away.
–Tom Riley
Competent
Joe is competent. Mark Shea has ruled.
Let your doubts by his judgment be schooled!
Vile critiques please don’t buy:
Joe’s a competent guy!
That is competent spittle he’s drooled.
–Tom Riley
Nostrils for the People
What? You claim Biden isn’t all there?
You’re a pig! Your critique isn’t fair.
Joe is sane – sane as Hell!
Knows America well.
Yes, by far he has sniffed the most hair.
–Tom Riley
Flammeus Gladius 