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"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
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“That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.”
― Jim Morrison
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There are two kinds of people in the world. People who fact-check themselves, and…whoah. There are a lot of kinds of people in the world. #justsaying
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... dun-colored roaches conducting the business of filth
while pot-bellied rats cloak and dagger
through the shadows.
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In a world where knowledge
is the new currency
poets starve.
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My Favorite Distraction
My Favorite Distraction
Since that thunderstruck moment, the one that gripped my soul,
there is a heartbeat outside my own frame that matters most to me.
No other has my full attention as you do, you know this, and so are no
help, instead ever beckoning me to come along with you, run away.
'Come to me,' you ask with just the right amount of sweet and heat,
'Let us find each other in a shared breath, a taste of the infinite.
'Us is more than me and you.' and every time you say it, I truly believe.
Kiss me as only you can, rip my grief from me with frenzied want,
and sooth my temper's grumbling with humor and musical laughter.
Part of the reason you own my heart, is because you are able to do this.
Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.
Happy 17th Anniversary
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This poem is a "Vague Acrostic" in which a prompted line of poetry - in this case the first line of Michael Drayton’s Idea 61 - supplies the first word in each line of the piece. Of course, I was prompted by those vaguely acrostic folks over at DVerse Poets.
Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.
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"We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one." ~ Tom Hiddleston
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The New Poor
THE NEW POOR
Fluttering scarves with brand names
are the flags of the new poor;
the flags of a conquered race,
standing in line for milk, cheese, eggs.
No supply and new demand -
the desire for acquisition unquenched,
floating down the line
from sad, lined face,
to tear-streaked face.
A low-wattage sun rises
over bleak cityscapes,
puts down a urine colored carpet
for the newly poor
to enter
their house of shame.
The voices of the dismal choir
rise over an uncaring audience.
Their cheap shoes, unclean shadows
and their hungers for what they do not have
give off a smog of discontent
that sticks to the skin
like whore's sweat.
And so they must join the throng;
the faceless nomads of these city streets
glimpsed from the corner of your eye.
There but for the grace of your employer,
three paychecks away,
you hope it is not catching
as you hurry back to the office with your latte.
-----
©2016 Christopher Reilley
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Maybe
Maybe
Everything is dependent on something else,
which is dependent on many others, many times
out of our control from the first step.
History repeats, and it also rhymes.
Maybe we can clean up our government, maybe not.
Maybe we will like what we get after the fact, it’s rare, but real.
You get what you get despite getting upset.
We will likely end up on the smaller end of the deal.
We want what we want without knowing what we have,
or how we can turn may-be into will-be.
We demand to drain the swamp, rid ourselves of rot,
meanwhile daily setting more alligators free.
Maybe having Big Daddy Orange Swamp feeder
be the one to direct the drainage of our political bog
is kind of a big "fox in the henhouse" type of gamble.
Leaving our future left to ripen under a mossy log.
Maybe we don't want to live under a dictatorship.
Maybe we want women and black and brown and yellow and red
and gay and other and weird and unique to be part of America.
Maybe we refuse to be ruled, instead we demand to be led.
Maybe we can feed the old and sick, not throw money at problems.
Socially liberal, fiscally conservative, thrifty but giving need due care.
Maybe we drain the swamp with an honest man in charge, for a change?
We can overcome the swamp-rats who prevent our getting there.
We drain the swamp together, armed with a bucket named Vote,
Chasing the beasts away with resolve and our collective iron will.
We have to come together, stop dumping on each other, splashing in rage,
or we will drown together - maybe we won’t - but maybe we will.
-----
©2020 Christopher Reilley I would love to know what you thought about this piece.
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#poem#poetry#rhyme#treason#politics#Jan6#DraintheSwamp#DrumpfTraitor#Secession#CriminalOval#creative writing#poets on tumblr
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Rule Yourself First
RULE YOURSELF FIRST
Once you have been properly imprisoned
you can make friends with the rats,
get yourself elected governor of the cell,
rule your domain.
Take your time to feel the cold stones
beneath you, mark the time
with hoarded chalk,
relax into your shackles.
Had you been a sailor,
you would be able to pull apart
any knot, no matter how complex.
If you had chosen a life as a circus clown
your reward would have been laughter
instead of tears.
You now have time to spend
thinking of betrayal,
and the quicksand under the bed.
Even worse than the punishment
is the snare, the trap, the decoy,
or the plainclothes officer
posing as a friend.
If you are able to imagine
that not every net is a snare,
you will be free enough to fly.
-----
©2014 Christopher Reilley
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#poem#poetry#creative writing#poets on tumblr#free verse#trap#prison#confinement#hope#apathy#growth#choice
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The Influence of Affluence
THE INFLUENCE OF AFFLUENCE
When the city powers down,
as masses fade into the migration
of mass transit,
you stand atop your glass mountain,
the voluptuous blood-beat of commerce
scrolling across your screens
in the form of stock prices,
with a politician in each pocket
and one on the shelf,
secure in the knowledge -
taken in a hostile acquisition, of course -
that every day brings you further away
from the consequences
of your actions.
No matter what lawyers might say,
your hand shaking mine
at the end of the interview
is a conspiracy
of fifty-four bones,
bound by your rules
in which I am empowered
to serve your needs in perpetuity,
allowed to pay for my education
that establishes enough debt
to induct me to service,
ensuring I’ll never leave on my own,
allowed to punch a clock
so you might track
a third of my life’s allotted hours,
while granting me
a meager existence
without the pension you plundered,
or the retirement by the sea
that you promised.
You are afraid of ME, of course,
because you do not understand me,
my behavior as different
from your own
as diamonds are to ducks.
Still, I would give a chunk of my heart
to be one of you –
the 1%, the golden children
who never have to ask
how much it costs,
the money-bright men
who stand above
the rest of us.
I'd be better at it than you are.
Just try me.
-----
©2014 Christopher Reilley
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#poem#original poem#poetry#creative writing#poets on tumblr#free verse#poets of tumblr#money#1%#rich#economy
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Mistakes About the Moon
MISTAKES ABOUT THE MOON
Far from lifeless, the moon plays host
to a pageant of shadows and light
cavorting over landscapes
with each pirouette. Never
blending, each razor edge
sharper than the one before,
dancing lunatic kinetics live brief lives,
a monochrome kaleidoscope
of binary art.
There is romance there as well;
not the kind collected from
generations of love-struck youth
or geriatric companions, or the
reflected warmth of
millions of upturned faces,
the romance that lives on the moon is
between satellite and gravity well,
an eternal gavotte of cosmic cadence.
There is horror to be found
on our nearest galactic neighbor
if you look for it,
in the knowledge than mankind has arrived,
left footprints in the sand,
and made plans to return.
Eons of peaceful, clean solitude
have come to a grisly end.
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#poem#poetry#poems and poetry#poems on tumblr#creative writing#poets on tumblr#distance#romance#moon#sattelite#horror
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Power Words
Do yourself a favor.
Take a moment away from your life,
your trivialities,
your morning coffee and pastry,
or the skimming and surfing of the Web,
take a moment to consider my words.
The words you are reading
right this instant
are probably showing up
in a ten-point Times Roman
or a Verdana
because that is what
your computer gives you,
and you accept it.
Little attention
to little poems,
reducing everything
to a succession
of diminutives.
You should know that I am writing this
in a HUGE 72 point
Impact Extra Bold,
with an extra red stroke!
Letters so massive,
so important,
they put stress fractures
on my monitor.
Words so
singularly important
God Himself
plagiarizes from me.
Because these words
are crucial to who I am.
Vital, in fact.
They are
Catharsis
Truth
Pain
Love
Passion
Hope
Art
and life.
But these words
are more than my ego,
more than a desire
to be read by you,
more than a need to be heard.
These words are a connection
between us.
It is you
that brings power to this poem.
Otherwise,
it is just
a pile of words.
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©2015 Christopher Reilley
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#essay#FathersDay#Parenting#Kids#LoveMyKids#DadAdvice#FathersDay2022#creative writing#poets on tumblr#fathersdaygifts#happyfathersday
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Width of Belief
WIDTH OF BELIEF
The length of yearning
is two oceans and a continent wide.
I measure its dewy breadth
in hothouse nights,
stained with salt and tears.
The height of loneliness
is a round trip to heaven and back,
leaving me breathless
and hollow, sounding only of echo -
answering myself.
The duration of pain is the time it takes -
no more and no less,
each grief tattoo fading at its own pace;
from purple to yellow to pink
from hurt to health, eventually.
The size of love is infinite,
of course, because of its miracle.
The more you give away
the more you have.
In my greed I offer you all I have.
-----
This poem appeared in "Breathing for Clouds" available from Big Table Publishing.
-----
©2009 Christopher Reilley
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We All Must Eat What We Have Bought
Much as we try to comprehend
the things we think that we were taught
or the truths we know that we forgot -
Ideas we strive to sore defend
are often found to be unfit
when the minds dark corners are lit.
Do not rely on kith or friend
to show you what is false or real,
do not get your true facts piecemeal.
Our fears we must try to suspend,
they get in the way of real growth
and make terror come out as oath.
On our own good heart we must depend,
we choose to see true facts or not.
We all must eat what we have bought.
Much as we try to comprehend,
ideas we strive to sore defend
do not rely on kith or friend.
Our fears we must try to suspend -
on our own good heart we must depend.
-----
This poem is the form "Constanza," a poetic form created by Connie Marcum Wong in 2007.
©2022 Christopher Reilley
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The Protocols of Resistance
THE PROTOCOLS OF RESISTANCE
The Wind is a living god out on the open sea.
She tears at your form, pulls you out of your shoes,
and rips at what you used to call strength,
redefining how you walk, stand, lean, or work,
schooling in you in the protocols of resistance,
eternally unyielding
and primal in her refusal to be coerced or countered.
Ocean spray can hit like buckshot
when she whips it into your face,
trillions of salted drops, just above freezing,
swarming like bees at the speed of dark;
and the ones that hit sting worse.
The world is a binary thing, oceans below, wind above -
and what lies below us is a mystery more than a platform.
But the wind that lives just above the waves
is a binary again, both the gentle lover of calm skies
and the lash of her biting, storm-fueled kiss.
A man cannot stand upon a ship at sea
without growing up,
a boy becoming a man because a man is needed,
a man becoming a sailor
because the sea will accept no less,
and the wind promises
to kiss each one.
©2014 Christopher Reilley
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