Category: Original Poems

It ascended in the twilight, even as I dropped
         down the winding roadway, and teased a view-
             blinking between the trees, a bit higher now.
At one point I even stopped

the car roadside to stare.  This moon, in full flower
                                   this playful, this passionate
     orb raced away and my mind raced after it,
chasing its reflection off a distant reservoir.

Around next curve there stood two
         massive owls in the roadway –
            partners sharing their prey.
One owl lept immediately and flew;

the other turned and stared a moment into the light
                           and was struck full-force.
                          I shuddered and I gasped
as it tumbled under the car and out of sight.

This was a different grieving.
                                   I knew the owl did not seek
               my apology, nor begrudge my mistake.
It did not miss this world nor mourn its leaving.

Still this was a sin of carelessness,
                 the destruction of such a creature.  And I knew it.
       As I drove I knew it, though it meant nothing to know it.
I erred.  It’s gone.  Both facts meaningless.

The hot memory cooled as I drove on.
       My black road cut a slot canyon beneath the pines.
         The moon had reached its zenith then, and shone
down on every thing, directly down.

-B Taylor, July 5 2024

To stroll the city market and notice
hot-pot boiling on its table, one leg
of which is repaired with duct tape;

and to observe also the running children
ducking to swerve underneath elbows
of adults sipping hot tea as they chat

is to endure a slow repeated needling
imposed on the few by the many
whose objective is other than safety.

After all, the bronze statues memorialize
risk takers.  No memorials are built
to honor the avoidance of undue risk

as he does now, stepping subtly before
a bicycle cart, to shield an old woman walking.
“To take the lowly place – this is honorable.”

To those who live in fire-protected tenements;
to the cooks, the elderly woman, the running children;
to the many un-burned, un-trampled people

he is not even an afterthought, but merely
a silent ghost who stares back at their faces –
not knowing which among them he has saved.

– B. Taylor Jun 20 2024

It’s you and me today friend, in this hole.
Hydraulics to the main de-skinner burst
last night.  Deferring maintenance takes it’s toll.
So we’ll fix that. But let’s get coffee first.

How can a place like this even exist?
I mean, live cables, coiled in pools of blood?
Vats of pig guts. Whole place smells like piss.
But look: you’re making it.  You’re doing good.

In twenty years you’ll be where I am now.
Still running wires. Still covered up with grease.
Still keeping all this powered-on, somehow.
But closer to the end.  And more at peace.

You know the bosses call this work “essential”
and people here seem mighty proud about it.
But I don’t see it all so existential.
It’s breakfast meat.  We all could do without it.

-B Taylor Jun 20 2024

I saw this poem by Heinrich Heine posted inside the Stuttgart ‘U-Bahn’ subway train. (Yes that’s the guys real name,. I couldn’t make it up.). It was posted in its original German language (obviously, in Germany). I appreciated the subway posting some poetry. Also it’s a good and simple poem in German. So I took a crack at translating it. First below is my final full-poem translation; then the literal (and therefore non-rhyming) translation to English, and finally the original version ‘auf Deutsch’ aka in German Language.

***

The Letter
– Heinrich Heine, 1800s
– translation by Bill Taylor 2022

No, it didn’t scare me
that letter that you wrote.
Your choice is not to care for me?
I read quote after quote

in this intricate 12-page document
constructing reasons why.
But no one writes such an argument
to truly say goodbye.

***

The Letter
-Heinrich Heine, 1800s
– literal translation

The letter that you wrote-
It scared me not at all;
You no longer wish to love me,
Although, your letter is long.

12 pages, prim and dainty-
a tiny manuscript!
One doesn’t write in such detail
when one says goodbye.

***

Der Brief
-Heinrich Heine, 1800s

Den Brief, den du geschrieben
Es macht mir gar nicht bang;
Du willst mich nicht mehr lieben,
Aber dein Brief ist lang.

Zwoelf Seiten, eng und zierlich!
Ein kleines Manuskript!
Man schreibt nicht so ausfuehrlich
Wenn man den Abschied gibt.

Railroad Track
Steel rails not
straight but curled
with curvature
of the turning world.

*****

Wire
Wire comes from a ten
mile spool wound by faceless
men who toil ceaseless
as the coil itself as
circles are continual

*****

Wine Glass
It’s dishonest to appear
so bulbous yet so thin.
O crystal vessels of evening time-
hold it!  Hold it in.

*****

Lighter
Cheap, broken plastic.  Yet
someone desires you;
one who seeks the flame but
not the sleek, nor the new.

-B Taylor 2022

At the bar were ladies, made up for the night
and one struck up conversation with me directly
about where I was from, and my plans that evening.
I said almost nothing, but was merely polite
until she lost interest and left me there alone.

I stared down at my bourbon, the crisp brown circle
alive with memory, and with the destruction of memory.
How is it that the past tastes cold and charred?
Warmth destroys the memory of ice.
Ice has numbed the memory of flames.

– B Taylor 2022

They had tabulated figures, stocked shelves,
swept and mopped.  But now in quarantine,
at home with just themselves

they are left to dream, and to reflect.
Although it is hard to dream while idle,
not knowing what to expect.

Even while watching the sunset, some actually
wish the night would just hurry up and come
so that dreams can arise more naturally.

B Taylor 2020

Please turn the TV volume down.
Turn off the singers and their shows.
It’s too late for all that carrying on.

They sing crescendos.  What I want to know is
what can they say about the long descent?
Where is a poet for the sloped plateaus?

There is no muse to guide the spent,
skipping tune you sometimes hear
from the aged, in their tales of discontent.

The linoleum is faded where
their steps have been paced and re-traced
til the leftover beat is thin and spare.

Some notes are gone now. Others spaced
wrongly – a new, blue variation.
Someday all of it gets erased.

I’ve heard that blue music on occasion.
It comes like radio waves, wavering
as if from a far-off, fading station.

-B Taylor, 2020