Richard J Tilley

The most serious Antics And those about The woods

Every star is a song embracing its own culture being pandered over and poked regarding its eventual demise Each star is a song triumphant and allegorical to the placed crowd of empty space (maybe poetry should sing after all)

We play tug of war with riddles of atoms like snowflakes in crystal lampshades there is no circumference we have gone up to space now disposed we fracture the moon with our lies but the only thing to see in the garden is me where I have not left hope attired I practice navigating her […]

We’re touching snowcaps Standing on the ground We are elevated in delusions I walk the heights of my motions in the sea Where little tadpoles somehow drowned I was thereafter lost in the city Until the evening is fresh and green And we start to see architecture From the mountains, from the desert We know […]

It’s the sound you’ve heard before One part of a song hidden within another You’ve tried to call it out, But no one is listening Not the knocking at the door That frightened you, you were thinking it was A visiting angel here to judge you You got on your knees and cried Now listening; […]

Humility is a breach of trust, Though some unwritten god whispers to me That it is a mandatory persuasion. I am so terrified by its precepts And the poverty that it requires. My heart battles against the Incumbent strain of poor labor That poetry and lifelines situate By the gestures of humility. I am strapped […]

We lose ourselves in dreams, As with clay, we are (re)formed Into absolute components, and Absolute opponents – for the desire Of escape: from the class we Were formed into, born into, And where the light of creation hymns Took so long to cross the galaxy Before reaching our foreheads, or was it Our arms […]

This is the last formidable dance To hear the calling of your corners However grateful or wind chilled The bracing of human wisdom Slides from the prison walls And implied muddy banks; I want to know that my father, The moon, was history, but I Know he is now dead in the listing Will of […]

Yes, you’ve forgotten where your Dormant sands quake that Lead to an arrest of persuasion, But you did not forget her teeth Nibbling at your courage Like the depths of father’s Alcoholism and stolen guilt. What you do recall Is the only moment you were alone Together, and she smiled, and insisted You do, to […]

The moon and the stars Are witnesses against us Seeing every atrocity All the travesties and heartbreak And they will not be censored In the witness chair They will not hold back Or forgive No teleological reluctance Or naturally impaired tongue Recidivism will attest To our abuses Against the planet And each other Inside the […]