(Updated 8/9/2026)
The following are samples of my poetry…
Tour Guide
If you need a guide through the territories
of loneliness, take me. I know these lands,
speak the language, have wandered here for years.
I’m self-taught. Too proud to ask for directions,
I drew the map, based on my own surveys and many
plunges into the jungle dark, the deserts beyond…
Requiem
It’s not yet time for the funeral. You’re just thinking
ahead, the way you always do, practicing your part
in every play that opens in your personal theater—
graduations, weddings, even your own birth. Well,
you did say, once, you dreamt of being born, sailing
through a gap in the reefs. Are you dreaming now…
The Nature of Grief
After the first gush, the rest sticks
inside, like glue in an upturned bottle.
The viscous gooey stuff
drips a drop now and then…
Landing
what is flight for
if not for this
closing of the arc
the quiet thrill
the flaring up…
Inserting Myself into Someone Else’s Picture
I can’t resist standing in Kathy’s place
at the center of this photo—blown up,
printed on fabric—in which she walks
away from the photographer
through a field of tall grass, toward
a hazy blue ridge in the distance,
where sky clings to mountains
like a flannel sheet over a sleeping child…
Thanks for the Fish
I never saw a jukebox with only three songs,
but my first music collection started that way.
I bought a cheap record player with money earned
hoeing tobacco and corn. I was thankful then
for the little music I had, and thankful now
for the thousands of tunes piped through my phone…
Cello in Moonlight
The strings pull me
to a darkened house,
through a door left open
to a room, empty…
Dear Wednesday Night Poetry Group
Thank you for your kind assistance
in revising my poem, “The Bird Feeder,”
in which I sought to weave, with the grace of swans,
a narrative of how I discovered the true meaning of life.
Thank you for your gentle suggestions for removing
excess commas to improve flow and for your wise
advice on enjamb…
Richard Allen Taylor, Poet 