Peter Lilly: Poems

'Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.' Calendar's rhythm thuds. The kick drum rattles your rib cage As collective memories and communal routines Plume like dust from that undulating skin. ..... You must wrap gifts in superfluous paper, ..... That's tradition. ..... Yet repeating acts to underline thankfulness, ..... That's superstition. Calendar's rhythm thuds And we bellow through that dust cloud, Clearing our throats and averting our eyes. THUD For the drum announces the sales THUD The rhythm is the anthem of vacation gifts. So discard the old and ugly, To find the beauty, To spend and to own.  'They came to the place that is called The Skull ' Excited skin bristles. Chill shivers the spine in want For purpose and ergonomics dim in contrast To the lights, and the efficacious movement of the crowd. ..... So much spectacle, ..... All these plate glass doors, ...

These lies cast a thoughtful zeal from the heart of their origin and it convinced so many in the necessity of shadows, that is the necessity of corruption. It was some sort of impatience that drew its teeth across the shivering flesh of the already emotionally tortured, And so many twisted hands reach for the escapism of free-market capitalism that has the individual all wrong: Equating relational significance with collecting eroding materials in the makeup of glittered vomit. And so may twisted hands reach for the razor-wire scaffolding of communism which has community all wrong: Negating the significance of the particular and fashioning flesh cogs which will never rotate cleanly because we are persons, not machinery. Desperate people will grasp for any answers they can reach.  This poem is a call for care and consideration, it is written to highlight that there is more than left and right, conservative and labour, blue and red, ...