Burning

Gasoline coated bark

Dry and dusty

Waiting for a spark

To go up

Up in flames

Red and orange and yellow

Sometimes blue and white

Heat greater than summer and an icy cold hot that breaks your bones

And melts your skin

And eats up fields as though it's never before eaten

Living with an internal hunger only to be fufilled by 

Engulfing forests

People

Animals

All that gets in it's way

All that stops it's distraction

Hot and quick

7/27/2014

Riley Welch

Boat Trips

Let your brain numb 

And eyes blur

And watch the water dance

And let the light reflecting off the top become 2 dimensional

So that the water is no longer moving up and down

But across the edges of the paper it's been painted on

Light and dark parts battling to move in there specific directions

Curving one over another 

Harmoniously chaotic

7/24/2014

Riley Welch

Long days and long nights

Early to bed

Early to rise

Makes a woman

Weirdly bored

And kind of well rested

What a strange phenomenon 

Will I even need the coffee today? 

7/22/2014

Riley Welch

Long

Grand green and rolling

Past the present and what's back

Forward for the future

And never looking back

Fields covered in life

Leaves, the fresh and few

Looking for the light

Lifted up and searching

Wondering

But more knowing

What is next

7/16/2014

Riley Welch

Train Rides

Poems are fun

Life is hard

When you make lists

You organize

That hard hard life

Into easy steps

To take one at a time

Poems are fun

But life can be rough

So that is when

You've got to stay tough

Deeps breaths

And the way backwards from 10

Can calm the roads

Bumpy and soft

Poems are fun

And so if life

With tickling laughter

And shattering thoughts

If you wanna succeed

You must stay light

7/16/2014

Riley Welch

Human Scent

As many of you know I'll be in Europe for the next 3.5 weeks, so posting might be rather sparce. Here's a poem I wrote at JFK on the way here:

There's this scent that comes over you

When you wash off all of life's perfumes

Worn and torn

Smells of hair and roots

And of supple skins 

Naturally soft tune

Scents of fingertips

And luscious lips

And of course legs lengths

And tips of toes

All smelled by the end of your nose 

7/13/2014

Riley Welch 

Favorite Fridays

Television

By: Roald Dahl

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did. 

Satisfaction

Warm brew of coffee glides 

Dripping through finely ground beans

Silky and butter

Symphony's beat crashes as liquid hits the white porcelain

Finally

Filled an inch from the rim

And let the sweat splash of cream

Turn the velvet brown to a warm caramel

And raise the glass to freshly colored lips that print themselves on the cold cup

And life can be breathed into the drinker

Alive for the morning

7/8/2014

Riley Welch

ABC

Curious kids can't confuse colors
But boisterous bothers be baffled by blue.

Since sniffling schoolgirls sneak super silent
Over odd obstacles
Like little locks, long logs.

Free fierce, ferocious ferrets
Away an about, anxiously.

Riding red robins rears,
Meanwhile mad mandibles mangle modern mopers.

Touching tentacles tangle tastefully
Deep down dark depths
While water warms, wobbles.

7/8/2014
Riley Welch

Candy Shop

Warm bubbly
Counting off-
Rounding letters
Puffed chests
Speaking soft, swift, sweet sentences.
That hit your ear drum like candy
Sugar coated, crunchy bright shells
Oozing chocolate
That spike your mood like
Spiking your blood sugar.
Except this one doesn't crash.

7/6/2014
Riley Welch

Pears

Rotten fruit hold juices in with thick skin

Squishing, soft fruits

Over ripened. Bursting. 

Like churning stomach juices

Held together by thick skin

And work fingertips

Letting juices trickle tears

Constant. Churning. 

6/30/2014

Riley Welch

Favorite Fridays

Moon-Catchin' Net

By: Shel Silverstein

I’ve made me a moon-catchin’ net,

And I’m goin’ huntin’ tonight,

I’ll run along swingin’ it over my head,

And grab for that big ball of light.

So tommorow just look at the sky,

And if there’s no moon you can bet

I’ve found what I sought and i finally caught

The moon in my moon-catchin’ net.

But if the moon’s still shinin’ there,

Look close underneath and you’ll get

A clear look at me in the sky swingin’ free

With a star in my moon-catchin’ net.