Dirty Guys

Dirty Guys

 

 

Have you caught dirty guys at their game?

Have you shown every dishonest aim

That sprang up in their guts

And impelled their cheap butts?

Nowadays, they’ll acknowledge no shame.

 

 

–Tom Riley

Dishonest Etchings of a Tart

Dishonest Etchings of a Tart

 

Give me a break, you sow!  That isn’t art.

You vomit forth your halfwit fantasies

Of rape, of rape, of rape, and, if you please,

Of rape.  It’s all just pigshit from the start,

Less honest than the etchings of a tart.

And then you fall on too-well-padded knees

To add your pseudo-Christian pieties.

Only your begging wells up from the heart.

I know that some dishonest art is great,

Of course.  The genius Horace shaped fine lies

That yet endure, although the Roman State

Is gone the way of post-triumphant sighs.

With Horace you won’t share that brilliant fate.

Your verses are as shapeless as your thighs.

 

–Tom Riley

 

(In beggar mode, the Pezzulo refers benefactors to her “works of art.”)

Sheer Emptiness

Sheer Emptiness

 

Amazing how sheer emptiness succeeds!
I know a puffed-up fraud who still has fans
Galore. They think his part has been a man’s.
They even celebrate heroic deeds
He never did. In public, he’s told beads
In his immense and unaccomplished hands.
They think that he has done as God commands.
They think his principles have been the Creed’s.
But all within is Pharisaical—
Not devilishly clever but just vain.
With infantility he’s stocked his skull—
Then preached maturity. Oh, what a rain
Of words he has produced — vacuous, dull!
He’d have done worse if he’d possessed a brain.

 

—Tom Riley

Paid in Full

Paid in Full

 

Planned Parenthood is sending Mark Shea checks?
Well, if that’s true, it’s only right and just.
Mark has a lovely family that he must
Support, and any payment he collects
Goes to a pro-life purpose. He connects
With leftist loonies well — and wins their trust.
Why can’t remuneration be discussed?
When judgment snarls, necessity deflects.
And, if the rumor isn’t true, what then?
How must we view his actions finally
If he’s not really on the payroll when
He serves with oceans of dishonesty
And to the baby-killers says amen?
It simply means he’s proud to work for free!

 

—Tom Riley

Rockin’ That Dress

Rockin’ That Dress

 

Celebrities are eager to pretend
That, if she wears the right expensive dress,
Michelle Obama’s beautiful. The less
Beauty they really see, the more they tend
To celebrate. A buffalo’s rear end,
She wins the praise of all who won’t confess
The truth about the godforsaken mess
She actually presents. How they offend
Against all that is honest and sincere!
It is a deficit time can’t repair.
The lie they dare to tell won’t disappear
With the mere exhalation of their air.
But wait! What’s this? Melania is here!
Even the Saudis cannot help but stare.

 

—Tom Riley

Kid Convention

Kid Convention

 

To your lies you are overcommitted,
Kid Convention! It makes you half-witted.
Vapors rise up from Hell.
Where’s your damn sense of smell?
You’re a shitter — but easily shitted.

 

—Tom Riley

Damage Control

Damage Control

 

Dear Editor:

Your writer is a peach.
Her story was as good as it could be.
But writers can be difficult to teach.
She erred a little when she quoted me.
The quote was accurate? Well, I agree—
But quoting me in that way was misleading.
I’ve stumbled into water, as you see,
And now the vicious little fish are feeding.

Here in these lines I alter that proceeding
And clearly say I didn’t mean to mean
What I then meant to say. Truth can be fleeting—
And, for my own part, I find truth obscene.

I lay a new heart open for inspection.
I hope you will accept this wise correction.

 

—Tom Riley

It’s a Fair Cop, but Society Is to Blame

It’s a Fair Cop, but Society Is to Blame

 

 

Do Muslim terrorists cut priestly throats?
Oh, no!  Just ask the pope!  It is the poor
Who, lacking opportunity (he notes),
Express themselves in violence.  Their store
Of sorrow on an unfamiliar shore
Moves them to opt for anti-Christian acts.
Without good jobs, they raise our murder score.
According to the pope, those are the facts.
So when the jihad jockeys howl, relax!
It isn’t terrorism, folks – just crime.
If slaughtered priests are real soon piled in stacks,
Poverty is to blame.  Time after time,
The pope upholds this simple rule of thumb.
(Poverty also makes him really dumb.)

 

 

–Tom Riley

 

 

(First appeared in Trinacria, No. 16, Fall 2016.)

Redaction

Redaction

 

 

We now present you with the evidence
of this bug-crazy shooter’s motivation.
Therefore, stop promulgating ignorance!
His nasty act of nightclub termination
did not proceed from radicalization
in anything that we could call Islam.
We’re nipping in the bud that false narration.
As explanation, it is just a sham.
Well, yes, the tape is edited. Hot damn
for editing in this important case!
Through carping opposition we must ram
our own account, the one you need to face.
Our reasons for redaction here are strong:
we’ve taken out the parts that prove us wrong.

 

 

–Tom Riley

Banishment

Banishment

 

 

You told the truth — and that’s a hurtful thing.
You’re banished from the Seminar of Liars.
Lies soothe — but careless verities all sting.
You told the truth — and that’s a hurtful thing.
We have declared dishonesty is king.
If you are selling truth, you’ll find no buyers.
You told the truth — and that’s a hurtful thing:
you’re banished from the Seminar of Liars!

 

 

–Tom Riley