This month’s Versed in Florida poet is 23-year-old Fort Myers, Florida native Shannon Riley. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in creative writing and theatre from Florida Gulf Coast University. She’s now earning her Master’s degree in English from FGCU while working as a creative writing and drama teacher at Gateway Charter High School. She’s an aspiring actress on the side. She tells WGCU’s Amy Tardif she started writing poetry when she was 8-years-old.
Fragments Of My Mind
A few written lines wont buy you a cup of coffee
He said not with disdain but from his own experience
The happiest saddest man you will ever know
Only two spectrums perpetuated life
It didn’t make sense to him not to rhyme
A profound statement wrapped in matching words
That’s what made it an art to him
Not the metaphors or line breaks
The clichés were the classics
There is enough sadness in the world already
He said not with disdain but from his own observation
Why would one write to perpetuate more
Sadness in this life
A few written lines wont change the world
He said not with disdain but from his own experience
He did not want her to suffer he did not want her like himself
Admirable and selfish intertwined
It didn’t make sense to him.
Her tea has two lumps of sugar
The happiest saddest woman you will ever know
She has a book of poems that has made its home on a dusty shelf
It has rested in the shaky palms of many
It has been violated by uncertain eyes
Perverse poems dance on the pages
She wrote fragments of her mind
Jotted down on napkins and scratch paper
Personal thoughts intertwined with absurd feelings
She has not changed the world
Drenched in suffering soaked in blessings
She did not intend to prove him right or wrong
It didn’t make sense to her.