Richard Allen Taylor's Poetry

Richard's poetry book, Something to Read on the Plane, can be purchased at Barnes & Noble Arboretum, Park Road Books,or online at http://www.mainstreetrag.com.

Awarded second prize in the Shakespeare’s Monkey Review “Simian Poetry Contest” and appeared in their Fall 2008 issue.

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.

I dig into the sesame shrimp, pondering the use of the word “will.”
I had a bright future, just minutes ago, when I came in, destined for
a fortune cookie that would tell me I will have a bright future.
In the present, the people who work here are nice. They speak

a little English. I don’t know their names, though I eat here often,
and there is an easy familiarity between us, ritualized with smiles,
many thank you’s and you’re welcome’s. I don’t ask, but I would
like to know her name, the woman at the counter, the one who guessed

before I spoke which of the daily specials I would order. They all seem
to know me here, especially her. I have named her Girl with Plain Face
and Nice Body. I wonder what it would be like to make love
with someone whose language I cannot understand, but then I remember.

She remembers that I always get diet cola and egg roll, that I never
order the chicken wing. I will have a bright future, but doesn’t
the future start now? I take a number, but they never pay attention
to my number when my order comes out of the kitchen.

So they must have a name for me, something in Chinese,
something they always write on my ticket.

First appeared in ken*again, Spring 2006

PUT YOUR EAR TO THE GROUND

Listen to the earth. Not just in its pristine
nakedness, but in its occupied state:
how it resonates, in harmony
with all its denizens. Hear
the root-thump and fish-croak,
footsteps of sparrows,
the low muttering of tall grass
whispered through water and rock.

The clicking of earthworms, sounds
you only imagined were there,
are there. If only you could listen
a little harder you would hear
the echoes of human hearts, the distant
jazz of joy sung in the streets and hummed
in a mother's lullaby, silent songs
made live again, celebration plucked
from a banjo made in heaven, music
woven into a carpet cut for dancing.

First appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal, 2008.

OPEN THIS LATER

this bottle, this box, this book, this case,
whatever can be closed. I sit in the open
with open heart and close my eyes for a few
seconds. My thoughts are closed, hidden
from view, at least from you (which may explain
your puzzled look). If you want to talk, I’m open
to that; have a seat and let’s chat, or if you’re closed
to that idea now, the door is always open
and so is the road home, or to anywhere,
the phone lines, the secrets of life and death,
what really happens when we die. It’s all
open to discussion.

Everything I think is closed tends to remain so,
but I am open to proof to the contrary. The past
is closed forever except to memory, or history;
and many things can be either; practically everything
swings by a hinge called either-or, either you will
or you won’t, either it is or it isn’t. It’s a question
of near or far, coming or going, speaking or remaining
silent, touching or running the other way. It’s hardly
ever a simple and.

First appeared in Thrift Poetic Arts Journal in 2005.

OUTBOUND

I am gone away, lifted off,
hurtling through space
in search of the holy grail,
in quest of the golden fleece,
my back to the sun,
Earth a diminishing dot.
I leave everything behind:
Eve, the serpent, the garden.
I am a white-hot particle of dust.
I ride a wave of light.
I abandon comfort,
eschew the womb.

I radiate from the center,
head for a star
different from the star that birthed me
but the one that calls my name,
ignites in celebration at my coming,
flashes its yellow plasma.
A celestial lighthouse
guides me through shoals,
for at this speed
small collisions are fatal,
time shrinks to nothing.
I travel a thousand years.

It is barely a blink.
My eyes sting from the heat of passing
through space I only thought was empty
but cuts and burns like blowing sand.
This makes me homesick
but I overcome it,
mutate into something better,
cleaned and polished by friction,
worn smooth, unsure
where I will stop
or if anyone will know me
when I arrive.

First appeared in High Horse Poetry Magazine, 2004.

ON A CAN OF SHAVING CREAM