(Updated 7/17/2024)
The following are samples of my poetry…
Exchanging Notes on Drumming
I always wanted to play the drums.
I always wanted to play a drum.
I beat on barstools with my father’s chopsticks.
I drummed by grinding and clicking my teeth…
Our Eating Disorders
You saw yourself in the mirror,
and your artist’s view painted
pounds over pencil thinness.
I face my reflection, see a little extra,
then turn sideways, see a fatso.
It doesn’t keep me from eating…
The Nature of Time
From order to chaos it goes, despite our resolve.
The wall begins to crumble as soon as it’s built.
The screw starts to loosen the moment it’s fastened.
We always know what time it is, yet still don’t know…
ONJ
You called her Ahhn-J, a mash-up of her initials.
She called you Kace, a truncated version of yours.
Did you know your BFF died in August, age 73?
Her daughter Chloe stayed close, all through
her long fight with cancer. Maybe she’s with you…
Something Else
Something old
usually refers to an antique object, an heirloom, but I prefer to think of history, geology, biology, back, back in time to the moment of ignition that sparked creation, a torch carried 14.8 billion years since The Big Bang, 4.5 billion since Earth-birth, two hundred thousand since your tribe homo sapiens sapiens set in motion the notion of procreation that eventually led to you…
The Ruins at Phillipi
Near this once-thriving Roman outpost, civil war
hurled the legions of Cassius and Brutus against
the army of Antony and Octavian, decades before
Paul established a church here and wrote his epistles.
More corrosive than war, erosion and time wore
down the city. Scavengers collected its loose brick
to patch nearby towns, leaving a few cobblestone
lanes intact among crumbling walls…
The Perfect Airplane
can’t be built, of course, the design
always a cargo of compromises,
speed versus maneuverability.
Gain one; lose the other.
For speed you’ll need sleekness, like a javelin,
the very sound of the word
a spear made for throwing…
Old Fat Man with Book
I toss the book onto the table
and squeeze into a booth
meant for thinner people.
When the waitress brings the meal,
I eat the fortune cookie first.
The narrow strip of paper says
You will have a bright future…
Richard Allen Taylor, Poet 