Peter Lilly: Poems

Observing the yet unknown makes you feel like the surplus population; cold, wet concrete seat hoping that someone will, not even drop just one coin, all you want is a glance of acknowledgement. Busyness men with business blinkers; tunnel visionaries conceitedly amble towards the light; merely a mirror. They ignore the uniqueness of the naturally weathered rock face walls. If you despise the walls they will close around you in the cold terror of claustrophobia. If you overlook the faces their bodies will crowd you in the heated frustration of claustrophobia, and eventually they will block out the light of your ambition. Do you really want to wait until you’re drowning in company before you admit that cogito ergo sum has left you tired of treading water? The weight of your blood may give you a heavy heart, but bleeding into anonymous sinkholes is no solution; They will never share your life but counterproductively replace what you pour out with lead memories. I think therefore I am. I am...

Supposed experts of expression grasp at their equality with greatness; whispers of memories of segments of a dream. Fame is all dreams come true. Open minds open wallets and throw live stock at flesh, leaving with memories they’d pay to forget. What past time is worth retaining? Projections of gold-plated medicines in bubbles, blown out from speakers burst over the entirety of the listeners, and gold is the ultimate in remedy. Made healthy enough to fill a manufactured lack at the expense of all other possible ambition, but to be the face of a glorious landfill. Excess denoting success sneers at the ground and gnashes sharp teeth toward the sky. If only gravity still gripped the cloud’s heels. What about you and me we know better than both, the packaging and consumer belong to each other, and we stand aloof, with everyone else. Counterfeit experts of expression obliviously whisper, talk and shout, building on the anonymity of yesterday, burying profound architecture in red-brick superm...

Shadows cast towards the exit anticipating your desire. But you’re actually happy in this room as you’re happy in your skin. You know you can’t merely Blow the sand out of an open wound. Sure enough, soon itchy nostrils and impatient feet beg permission to engage their gears and reconnect with your wandering shadow, buried in something new. Happiness is not a synonym of contentment; you cannot brush the stain of want from your clothes and expect to be able to leave the curtains open but keep the window closed. Ambition is not the opposite of contentment; to sink your roots deep is not to give up the potential of growing towards the sky, tumbleweed wishes it could fly just to touch the lowest branch of the tallest tree. Written Jan 2010