RILEY

RILEY Nov 2013

Reasons Not to Go Out of Your House These Days:

Whats the value of a kiss
When we don’t kiss
We just play bumper cars with our cheeks
~Check that girl out bro~
Whats the value of a hug
When we don’t hug
We just enjoy the spontaneousity of our arms surrounding our lost souls
Ow god… look at that thing go…
Whats the value of men
who shape nothing but testosterone
And images of money;
Lets take images of our money
Flaunt them around
And round will be our days
In that cycle we call the dyslexic arrogance of higher class
*Dude did you see that!?

RILEY Nov 2013

Damage Control:

The deadly fumes become her perfume being able to consume a heart and I assume you know that feel

The great vibes become a tribe of interlaced emotions sharp and strange like miserable happiness recruiting martyrs from mankind

A sharp look into the eyes of death and you’ll fall in love

As it takes you away into the dark enlightened shadows that represent nothing but a simple phrase of “I love you”

Angels of death called upon her as the queen of astonished souls

Supposedly surprised for they did not expect

That the beauty that lies behind her eyes was lethal

And lethal as glory, joy or pride I lay mine aside

And succumb to her ways that lead to intersecting war crafts and arsenal

Bombs of existential hypothesis like never before

And just like our earth governed by mass murderers mallesting our most intimate yet extrovert part of our body which is our minds

She is not the one causing damage

But I’m the one that lacks a damage control

In memory of our romantic martyrs...

RILEY Nov 2013

The Graveyard Man

I was walking one day
Past the city
Into the shadows of our smoke;
The fumes of our cigarettes covered the trail
Until nothing became clear for me to see.
I bumped into an ancient looking man,
With green eyes that turned pale
And a wrinkled face
That was about to crumble;
I saw him cleaning up
A newly placed tombstone.
He was a graveyard man;
I look at him and suddenly
I felt the urge to ask him,
How is it like? Talking to dead people.
He didn't answer
But I continued anyway;
How is it like to look at solid stones?
And envision her tender eyes looking back
How could we mark he territory of the dead?
As if soil could surround our spirits
How could it suffice?
To point out troubles getting no advice
Questions with no answers,
And as you speak
You don’t know if you are being heard
But you continue anyway.
How is it like? Talking to dead people;
Salute the rocks under the carves,
Knowing that underneath
Lies not wood
But a person who couldn't as much as you could,
And even if he could, you don’t know if he would- come out and talk to you,
Because maybe he’s fed up?
Maybe when life takes too long
The sweet becomes bitter
And our friends
Become but anchors attached to our hearts
Pulling us down
Marking our spirits with soil;
Maybe he’s ashamed
Of the blood stains on his folded flag,
Of the- lose knots in his piece of cloth
And you’ll never discover that
But you still continue anyway
Asking your questions;
How is it like? Talking to dead people.
How is it like talking to anti-change institutions?
And, people with no purpose in life
And, violent illiterates who seek to ****
Because death should be passed on
How is it like talking to people that will not listen?
To the governments that will not bother
To the public blinded by the minor majorities
To the children stuck in their melodramatic attitudes
Over crowded with the propaganda of teenagery
To the hypocrite schools that teach but not educate
To the mothers who give birth
To a fruitful seed, but will not cultivate;
To a father that’s always late
To his son’s birthdays
Because his job appointments
Pointed in the shape of earphones
And circled in the shape of speakers
So it’s neither him listening, nor him talking
Its them.
But nothing will change,
Yet you continue anyway
Asking your questions,
Not for the dead,
But for the resting voices
Leaving you the space to think;
To answer within
Or decide to disregard,
Leaving space for you own voice to emerge.
And as I look back at graveyard man
He was gone;
As if his body de-synthesized as soon as I finished
And the newly placed casket;
Bared his exact size,
And the tombstone
For a second there represented his eyes,
And it didn't take too long, for me to realize
How is it like; talking to the dead.

RILEY Nov 2013

Belonging (A lyrical prose):

Everyone is fighting for something, and the people that listen most to the music of the universe can feel the agonies of our nature and rescue something of our earth before it’s too late… he can smell the soil he left in his drawer next to his immigration papers, he can envision the cold breeze of a summer night in one compartment of his soul and one area of his land, he forgot the keys in a back pocket of some Armani suit or some other pretentious outfit he had to put on for him to fit in the lifestyle of a multinational uprising genius. His wife feels the floors are just the same, she can read between the tiles the little lines their feet drew as they neglected their steps towards oblivion, little sentences of regret they left behind the trails along with burnt gas and crude oil. Their child always belonged, their child always belonged. The moon gazes on its universe, it sparks thoughts upon dreamers and induces muses upon reflecting sons and daughters that are willing to fight and are willing to belong at the same time. The moon looks at the misplaced societies, the Armenians within the orientalists, the Africans within the airheads, the leftists within the empty minded pocketless, the empty minded pocketless within the land that took his freedom and replaced it by liberalization and stole his freedom of thought and gave him freedom of speech no more, no less. My tips write on a keyboard that lost its touch, it was supposed to be made for those who fight for a cause, not for those lost between the many causes, it was made for those who change societies, not for those who think of that as an understatement, it was made for those willing to calculate their losses and their profits, not for those who have no capital except the pens and papers they keep aside their beds, and no revenue except the little comments they get on artistic nights in the underground. I write not in my mother language, I write not with my mother, blasphemy is not a tool for me to be heard nor a sound for me to use. I write not with my mother language, I write not with words, I write not with grammar, I write not with language, I write with my feelings and my thoughts and my falling doubts. Falling. His head was falling as he laid it on the ground, for the gunshots are too loud for his ears, and the bullets are too hot for his face, and the missiles are too striking for his vision, and the care packages that never come may not be needed when his final rest place could be achieved by falling. His head was falling as he laid it on the ground, thanking God for his graciousness, for allowing him to leave the country, praying to God that it all ends soon, knowing it won’t, fighting. The women were fighting, over their children’s corpse, over their enemies swords, over their broken houses, over their husband’s illness, over the broken rocks they used to lure the enemy out. Fighting. The women were fighting over dresses, over the last pair of shoes, over their grandiose wedding cakes, they always belonged, they always belonged. Belong. A child belongs to a family, a child belongs to a house, a child belongs to his innocence, a child belongs to his laughter, a child belongs to a holy land, a child belongs to the smiles. Belong. A child does not belong to ******, a child does not belong to blood, a child does not belong to hunger, a child does not belong, a child does not belong in the holy land. Everyone is fighting for something, but not everyone belongs…everyone is fighting for something but not everyone belongs.

RILEY Oct 2013

For Those Looking for a Message:

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed,
Thinking to my self
That falling off of it was much better;
I picked myself up
And threw myself back into the bumping walls of life,
Thinking to myself
That not picking myself up was much better;
I opened my eyes to a father’s concerned eyes,
Which reminded me of how wrong things are going,
His vocals in twine with the air he’s blowing
Shattered the rhythm of a morning
And scratched the record of a sunshine to give a beat
In the back of my head
Heading towards the doors of my anxiousness,
Opening the gates
For yet more things to wait,
Like the sat scores that never come
And for the first time I actually want them to…
Thinking to myself
That bumping into the vigorous walls of life was much better;
I walked down the street,
Tapping my feet to the concrete
Figuring out that the solids of our creations
Belong to the solitudes of our nature,
And creatively I wrote it on the back of my hand
For there are alotta things that I wanna write
But I just forgot how to,
Alotta things to fight for
But I can’t seem to figure out where to start;
And I am falling,
I am falling through the new beginnings
That open up a door of ambiguous smiles,
Walks down iles
Of a mind that spaced out for a while;
Cups of warm coffee with just enough water in them,
Pens that wrote poetry
That had just enough imagery in them,
Women that wore beauty
With just enough humbleness in them;
And I hold on to those thoughts
And I keep holding on to the invisible waves of hope
That keep crashing my sunrises,
And crushing my heart,
And crucifying my objectives,
And circumstancing my dreams,
And crunching the little crumbles of unattended paper
That I once wrote on,
The poetry that I can no more write
Because I stopped feeling
So I should go back to learning how to;
But loud enough as I speak
My feelings stay silent
Vibrating through my veins just to make sure that they still exist
But she made sure they ceased to
And they did
And they did.
Thinking to myself
That listening to the manly morning voice of my father
Was a lot better;
Shape shifting from thoughts to spots
And corners that burn
With the acid memories that turn
Round the tables and square the chairs;
The cigarette buds that now exist
On a once so holly place
Mock my words
And word my mockery,
Reminding me of how wrong things are going;
Reminding me to stop
Because I am running out of breath;
I am trying to lift the weight of the world
And the weight of my figure
And figure out the depth of her soul
Aligned with the depth of her eye liner
Now fully covering the beauty in her eyes
Because that’s how she runs from the world,
Jumping over social obstacles
And exes exiting her doors from the walls,
So every time someone walks out of her life
She has to renovate the bulwarks of her heart,
Skipping through side conversations
Because causality is fatal;
As I skip through the words jumping over stanzas,
The poem that wrote itself
Wrote itself-
And I shall let it be,
For if it wasn’t personal enough for you
It ispersonal for me,
And if you couldn’t find a savior in my words
An enchantment in my lines
Then maybe poetry wasn’t made for me to save you;
Maybe it was made to wake you up
And maybe I could wake up as well
And this time on the right side of the bed,
For the sheets are strangling my neck
And the woodwork is creaking
So as I tried to fix it
A voice in the background booms
Like the sound system of a teenager
Saying
“This cannot be fixed my friend
This can only be enjoyed”

RILEY Sep 2013

Looking for Mortality

The sweet texture of her skin,
Gone,
The curves from her hips to her legs,
Destroyed;
The hands and hearts in twine with the beauty of a perfect soul
Now lies and in a double layered wooden cabinet
That holds not our dead, but our fatal fears,
Forming mosques out of our open hands
Praying church bells ringing,
Like phones vibrating passing the immortal message of death.
And we look at each other,
Every night
Before and after I got to sleep
For when I sleep,
Although lacking luxurious spaces
I lie next to her in that doubled layered wooden cabinet
That becomes not a casket
But a space shuttle;
We fly and hover
And discover the lover I've loved and still love
But can't be loved back, because
The double layered cabinets
And cab drivers that took us from point A
To Becoming what we wanted to dream
Block our audibility;
And our tongues still tangled from when we last kissed
So I can't talk and neither
Can she- hear me?
Through the escalating winds
And multitudinous vibrations of living corps,
Cropped the days out of a memoire
And pasted them in an internal time shifting memory
That'll last a lifetime until we get to begin again;
The pen that frightened the writer,
The writer that wrote
And brought misery to the readers
As her read through the green in her eyes,
The silk in her hair
The failures in her tries
And the sobs in despair.
I declare, ware upon my enemies
Love, death and my loud conscience,
For none of them brought us good perhaps
And none of them gave us what we need
And none of them were as benevolent as promised to be;
For you promised to me,
And you promised;
But the promises could not be kept by the dead
And the dead are those living in a waiting hall
And the dead, that do not keep promises
And the dead looking at their watches
Counting backwards…
As we all claim dead
Some of us are looking for mortality
And some of us become immortal…

I owe this one to john green.

RILEY Sep 2013

White Receipt in a Coffee Shop:

Heads revolving around topics and unanswered questions,
And questions about a lonely fan
Staring at us, revolving its three pedal shaped figures,
Not creating any new air,
Just transcending what we already have to us
Which I find pretty ironic…
But we can’t live without that fan can we?
I lost track of time not because I am lost, but because my phone died on me
Along with all the other people around ;
The unity between material and man…
My coffee, is black
And so is her sweater now half wrinkled half folded over,
Because she can’t seem to figure out a way to sit,
A way to think
A way to sink in the thoughts of the whole universe within one glace of her beautiful eyes-
Bumping into mine;
And our eye contact couldn’t stand longer than two seconds,
But in those two seconds,
I met her,
I got to know her better,
We went on our first date
I created a whole scenario about us living together and having a child running to me saying
“dad, how did you meet mommy” but child I never did…
Smiling faces, joyful faces
Shape the vibe of the coffee shop that has been my sanctuary for the summer;
The summer of “enchanter”, blue silver and white lights
Long walks on the shores of my chores,
And thoughts that were once yours
Until you sent me those messages
And from that day I realized I am alone.
I am alone for when I met you,
You told me the story of how once you were a child
Growing up between warheads and air headed brothers,
And fairy dust brushed off of the VCR tapes from your favorite movies
Which are now nothing but old 90’s classics.
When I met you,
You talked to me of how you want to become a fashion designer,
And visit france and sleep in paris
Stopping time right at the moment when you find your prince charming,
Because if time passes by and you grow old
You lose track of things and time and not cause your phone died on you
But because you are lost.
You are lost in space and time for when
I met you, you told me about past crushes and crushed hearts,
Future plans and undiscovered parts;
But you never told me about you now…who you are…
As if it was my job to discover that,
As if I was obliged to read the signs in your desperate eyes
And come up with a full analysis of the thing that is you
On a white sheet, same as the one I was writing on
Before I cried poetry upon it;
And poetry becomes fire when in contact with the air I breathe,
And so I choke on ashes every time I see you
For the poetry I wanna write could not be spoken so I just keep it inside;
I just keep it inside and choke on it…

When i wrote this...it was actually on a white receipt in a coffee shop...