Mr. Moderation
I’m drinking in your beauty cautiously.
Don’t want to be a hopeless you-aholic.
You claim it’s worth the risk? Oh, I agree.
I’m drinking in your beauty cautiously
On that account. But your appeal to me
Might, I can dimly sense, prove catabolic.
I’m drinking in your beauty – cautiously.
Don’t want to be a hopeless you-aholic.
–Tom Riley
General Vacuity
Riding the wave of bogus righteousness,
General Seidule displays his stuff:
Subservience to every stinking mess
Of ideology. Simplistic? Tough!
Of simplemindedness there’s not enough
According to the standards now embraced.
Spare him the other side and all that guff.
Some facts he loves – but others won’t be faced.
For Southern battle flags he has no taste—
And monuments he will not tolerate.
Let all those whom we honored be debased!
Adore the sick! Calumniate the great!
Hold hands with pansies! Piss upon brave men!
Seidule will not feel so gutless then.
–Tom Riley
Because Racizm
Just like Robert E. Lee, Dr. Seuss
Has to go! Kick his long-dead caboose!
Turn the fierce cancel crew
On Thing One and Thing Two!
Let the Cat in the Hat get the noose!
–Tom Riley
Excelsior
“Body fat? I shall never relent!”
Cries Mark Shea, garbed in vast nomad tent.
“The unreachable star
Isn’t really that far.
I strive hard for 100 percent!”
–Tom Riley
Hit Play
Vengeance, sadly, I failed to enact.
Oh, sufficient zeal, clearly, I lacked!
Conscience ceaselessly gnaws.
Now I hit play, not pause,
For there’s still enough time. That’s a fact!
–Tom Riley
Blackbird Elegy
Soon they will cancel Edgar Allan Poe,
Not caring that the famous Raven’s black.
I’ve seen the signs. I know how this will go.
Soon they will cancel Edgar Allan Poe.
It’s pretty likely Stephen King will crow
On that account, lest zombie types attack.
Soon they will cancel Edgar Allan Poe,
Not caring that the famous Raven’s black.
–Tom Riley
Hey, Look!
“I’m leaving you,”
said Southern Belle.
There were no tears
yet,
but the tight-lipped expression
was full of pain.
“The magic is gone.
Besides, you’ve become
intolerably preachy
and abusive.”
Billy Yank responded
with a backhand
of industrial strength
that loosened Belle’s small white teeth
and spattered blood
in an unforgettable
pattern
all over wall and floor.
During the perfunctory
rape that followed,
Billy yawned,
displaying square
yellow chompers
the size of family bibles.
“Must preserve the union.
Hey, look!
I freed the slaves!”
–Tom Riley
Mission Impossible
“We are shaping a brand-new tradition—
One that disregards old superstition
And elite points of view!”
So they said, not a few.
But it wasn’t a possible mission.
–Tom Riley
Vain Mockery
Insults do, if I have a clue, rock.
Satire too – for respect is a crock
In most cases I view.
Still, I’m not mocking you.
It is mostly myself that I mock.
–Tom Riley
Degradation to Come
When we’re ruled by a five-dollar whore,
We will then be corrupt to the core—
But we won’t be done yet.
Not at all. You can bet
That the Left will be begging for more.
–Tom Riley
Flammeus Gladius 