‘None for All’ and Other Poetry by Peter Lillios

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None for All

Backbones wilt and waistlines grow;
Brightness dims as diodes glow.
It’s history’s course, a simple fact,
Declared with pride—or else with tact.

Vigor falters, wits regress;
The perspicacious acquiesce.
It’s civilized, it’s preordained,
This kingdom of the addlebrained.

Rhyme is dead—and reason too:
They’re obsolete, passé, taboo.
Let’s ring it in, let’s overdose:
An empire of the comatose.

Hollow heads are held on high,
Degrees and honors multiply
To crown this nation’s loudest shill:
The educated imbecile.

We’ve righted wrongs, we’ve collared hate,
We’ve mastered how to regulate;
To arbitrate, to medicate,
And failing that—incarcerate.

Our cures are many, ailments too—
For each we fix, three more accrue.
And if this tally’s got you down,
We’ve just the pill to flip that frown.

We wear our virtues on our sleeves
Like knights of old wore bracers, greaves,
Since all that’s left of battle whoops
Are shrieks of righteous nincompoops.

Our future’s bright, our creed brand new,
Unknown to mankind hitherto:
It’s “none for all and all for none,”
This expert-led and nitwit-run
Republic of the Simpleton.

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The Splendid Art

Freedom’s fine, as versecraft goes,
For days when gentle breezes blow;
For tepid seas with tranquil flows,
Where bathers risk no undertow.

But when time comes to brave a storm,
To don a mason’s uniform,
And build a keep that won’t deform—
Give me structure, give me form.

Give me words laid brick by brick,
With end rhymes heavy, mortar thick,
And lines marked out by metrestick
With architect’s arithmetic.

Within this fort I’ll be secured
By apt and well-positioned words.
To stormy thoughts, I’ll be inured—
Confined, constrained, and yet assured.

The splendid art of flow and rhyme
Is no mere child’s pantomime—
It tames the harshest mental clime,
And sprouts fresh buds in wintertime.

It frames dejection, recasts doubt
As puzzle piece to move about:
Despondence isn’t half as stout
When bound by feet and trotted out.

Form is thus a curious thing—
It ties one’s hands, makes slaves of kings;
It offers chains, and never wings.
Yet when seas churn and storm clouds sing,
These chains shall be my anchoring.

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Peter Lillios resides in Sound Beach, New York. He is an auditor by profession.