Poetry by Brian Rihlmann

RESOLUTION 

I’d like to do less
and be more
or even nothing 

something 
is too much to be
and doing 
is too much to do

we’ve an addiction to doing
it’s like a syringe 
in our pocket
always jabbing 

like a gift
that was given us
and we were told
“Here, you want this!”

what we want
beneath the wants
we were given--

to discover that
is to claw our way
from the grave
of the life prescribed
and finally live



​
BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST

my earplugs are in
so I don’t hear him
don’t notice as he
sits at the other end
of the long table

until I feel the vibrations 
across 8 feet of hardwood--
the pounding of his middle fingers
on the keys
like angry little fists

I stare until he
looks up, then away 
continues to pound

he either does
or doesn’t understand 
what the look is about 

I clench my jaw
against the words
kicking the backs
of my teeth
and try to work 
try to finish the poem
I’m writing 

a hundred times a day
I’m called to reconcile
what I’d like to do
with what’s socially acceptable 
but there’s no reconciling them--

I can only squirm 
in this wretched gap
where I live


​
Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. Folk poetry…for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, The Rye Whiskey Review and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.