Polychromatica
He wrote in red, and then he wrote in green.
He hoped that it’d help his phrases go
to places far beyond the present scene.
He wrote in red, and then he wrote in green.
In white space did the big ideas convene,
impressive but impossible to know.
He wrote in red — and then he wrote in green.
He hoped that it’d help his phrases go.
–Tom Riley
Orange Ink
My darkest dreams I wrote in orange ink.
Such was the instrument I had to hand.
Even the lurking spirits had to blink.
How could they see and read and understand?
I’d like to say the mystery was planned.
I’d like to claim obscurity as aim.
I’d like to make oracular my brand.
I’d like a lot of things. But, all the same,
I’d set no rules to regulate the game
I’d found myself right then insanely playing.
Out the despairing words serenely came.
I myself hardly knew what I was saying.
Now I can read those words no more than you.
Lost is the wretched insight. Good thing, too.
–Tom Riley
Beyond Erasure
When I’m holding a pencil, it wakes,
My perfection: my hand never shakes
As I write what I think.
When I turn, though, to ink,
I make dozens of glaring mistakes.
–Tom Riley
Flammeus Gladius 