Peter Lilly: Poems

Look down at the sodium stars Of a pessimistic skyline Beneath the black anonymity, The expansive anything. The 'Summun bonum'* Is but an ominous question mark, Apparently. Look down on all breath and blood Transparently eclipsing the obvious essentials. When the blatant hides behind the invisible You’re lost inside last century’s explanation And you need to keep up with the times, Apparently. This advertising nihilism; A pseudo ambition, Chasing your own tale. A rejection, replacing what yesterday overlooked, Tracing an orbit in the heavens; Circling the drain; The meaningless of our own answers. Scoff at the scent of superstition As poetry disintegrates into Uninventive descriptions of depravity, Because you’re not truly right Unless you don’t believe in truth, And it’s beneficial to swallow your own teeth, Apparently. Now sweat, not from heat But the embarrassment of Something that you have never said, You took progress for granted. ...

You’ve grown into a social sickness, An unquenchable thirst that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters beyond the taste Habitual past times mean You are mildly acquainted with chemical addiction, Nursing wounds with cautious pride; If the wrong people see them You might be persuaded into secret regret. You embrace assimilation And drown distinction in exotic colours Whilst trying to preserve the Importance of your opinion: This discontinuity is not sustainable. Contentment is in all but boredom… Happiness only in lightness, Hell is something deeper than your thirst At the wrong time. Hell is something perfectly blemished That gets in the way of something new. When you choose to retreat; Sleep is either extensively over rated Or severely under appreciated. All else is easy come and easy go Like the memories of an especially boring person. All significance is fleeting perception and entertainment But absolutes still remain important. The celebrity relationship breakdown: Light entertainment in...

This poem is about the Genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The stains of the blood of the innocent Of 1963 and 1973 had only started to fade They still spelt the same word in the dirt That they always had GENOCIDE Year numbers grow uniformly As does the hope of an international presence Conflicting convictions, order restrictions Peaceful predictions, sent to monitor GENOCIDE 1994 Rwanda had a glimpse of the 21st century Beyond machete horizon And that new mountain of festering death Beginning with the rumours of an organised insanity GENOCIDE Pre-determined death of one; trigger Prescribed prejudice, take up your arms Call to the children to carve the smile from their own childhood And lacerate family ties GENOCIDE Around 800,000 killed in one hundred days Fitting the description by eyes, bloodshot with rivers “Too mad and too methodical to be understood” Described by those, silenced by memories of GENOCIDE Scavenger birds picking at the skin Of the masses; no longer bleeding With the last me...