Detailed Privacy

writing sideways on feathered lines
much more than you will hear
if it's no now
it was never yes
now
come find me, I am not hiding
I am picnic pretty, prepared
for olive salads and mayonnaise stains
dappled and depleted sundress yellow
this is not the color
of next time
go into the public space
so that I may steal you away
they are embarrassing
high-waters & flood laughs
I am your detailed privacy
the walls of your breath
which echo alone, alone
safely alone,
come find me there.

Elephantal Humans

eugene asked why I liked women
I should have said hectocotylus that's why
invertebrate hypodermic insemination
duck sex with screwdriving gangbangs
that's why
but that's not what I said
elephants are matriarchal
built with chastity-belt shaped penis-clits
it's true, penis-clits
for the drum-footed and giant-hearted,
their consent is holy, is sexy, is built-in
my dark friend from cameroon
thinks lesbian sex is practice
likes his girlfriend to kiss girls
but not other men, so I said
Eugene, I just like elephantal humans.
more often than not,
their earthsuits are female
just as the packages you prefer
that's why
but when your girlfriend prefers other lips
to yours
her yes is holy,
her kiss is never practice.


*This poem has also been posted here: http://exfic.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/elephantal-humans-by-laura-taylor/?preview=true&preview_id=219&preview_nonce=45e95c92f1&post_format=standard
Special thanks to the folks at EXFIC.

Uziel Bermoy

the day uziel died
there was silence
so deep
no one knew what to say
we wanted to believe
there was a plan
but Cheryl's baby
slipped out
in a silly jaunt to the store
uziel isn't alone
in the purposelessness
of death,
the bad-timing of good-bye,
with silence so heavy
we are all waiting
for the reason why.

Tomorrow Never Comes

To me, it's like this.
science is another word for magic

she is the paid-for-whore
willing to bend or stretch

if you hold her just right

less grotesque in that
she does it all eagerly

whether or not you
are there to see

life is consciousness

in the spiraling black hole 

a shadow song from an oubliette

a sudden and forced forget

hopes are tears on colored ink:

Jesus-blue & Vishnu-green bleed
together
running in mud 

idols whose purposes glide

while psalms are dutifully sung.
lemmings for the dip!
religion is flawed-

only despair has need for god

there is no meaning
but the one you lend

no kind or evil but a concept

faith exists
in the moments before sleep

when tomorrow is a promise
the universe will keep

but tomorrow never comes

in the protestant lips
of sunrise and sunset,

time is the mouth of now 

question is the sigh of why

reason is the breath of yes. 

Frankenstein's Monster

this frankenstein message
is stitched with decomposed past tense
to infant present participle
don't mistake it for health
it's zombie gait is thirsty
for some way to find the words
that you need to say
that it needs to hear
tell it, awkward or not
the sadsong lullabyes
should grow to be an illfit
that it may not be swan lake,
but that the ostrich dive
will not help
there will always be burning pitchforks
in it's mind
there is only one path down the mountain
coo softly, woo sweetly
it will shake the monster flakes
and be the thing
that beauty born beautiful
could never be

If Everyday Were Monday

if everyday were monday,
the one petal of the week
where our arms lace
we'd never see tuesday mornings
when the trash truck sounds
like khaleesi's dragons
looking through this window
trying to ask a question without words,
monday has turned into night
and we may only be two ships
dodging harbors
I am resigned-
heaven's last name is hell
the flower of our time
has been built by
stems of before-we-met
leaves of leaving
yet the color of our kiss
is where you and I blend,
and has grown
in the brief season
of a trend.

Unique to American Geoscience

deconstruct our face into modern hieroglyphs
cave paintings for steel trains
the veins of an incendicite continent
useless but for questing
make it our face,
we know what the search is
the rock crush creating painite
eventually
both portlands are arms stretched
democracy sternum ready
but like any word or truth,
staring too long creates dilution; delusion
both portlands are arms stretched
and we
are the face.

Glamour

let me age like sophia loren
like audrey hepburn
like a slow burn
let me go down gracefully
remembered for the black and white
upheld in technicolor
better for who I am than who I've been
I was always the supporting role for you
acting opposite the star
I'm alright with that,
we seldom
star in our own lives
I won't mind, picking up your lines
as you drop them on another
let me age like rita hayworth
as gilda, cooing and wooing with mame
not like her actual fade:
pickled in an alzheimer's haze
let me age like katherine hepburn
when she brought up baby
not like the downhill fold she lived,
a megalith's grit strummed to vibrate
no, let me age like sophia loren
like audrey hepburn
it's been hard to learn
but all I want
is a slow burn

Fractals

the feminine has crocheted and thus invalidated
euclid's parallel postulate
einstein is grinning into his veggieburger
somewhere
two sisters only ever meant to say
the coral is bleaching, crying, dying
they only meant to stitch the sad fact:
even mathematicians cannot describe
infinity

marie

the only word I know in Nigerian
is the rhythm of the heartbeat
the language of her skill
remains incomplete
how she undoes me, I do not know
perhaps it is the wit she webs
I am her careful cricket brought down
the measure of her charm ebbs
into a dal segno al fine crown


how she undoes me, I do not know
yet this careful ostinato trills
how undone
I am.

elle était si...

she was a soul-renewing gift from the universe

straight to my earth-bound existence.

she was a newly-hatched maggot

writhing beneath my skin

in only the most delicate places,

devouring & souring within 

she was unexplainable. 

pen to paper conjures only shadows

only shade of the space she made

she came in like hunger & stayed

regardless of the food I am fed, 

she will not fade

she came in like mist & I blame her rain

regardless of the flood I gain

she will not wane

she was better from a distance.

she was the sound of a pussy's purr

the mystery behind it;

of slick red nails screaming into slate

& the desperate need for it to end.

she was gone before I was ready

she left an empty echo which whispers mostly

that I never knew her at all. 

I want to grow old with you 9/17/12

I want to grow old with you
& by that I mean,
3 years from now
the crackle & pop of our argument
will confuse igniting with extinguishing
you as beloved,
may you find solace in this phrase:
    I am not perfect,
    but I am growing.
Sometimes crooked from want
    of fair-weather & starshine
Sometimes straight from want
    of metacognition & dark matter
I am not perfect, but I am yours.
if I can know your misstep
your sideways trot and up-down-up canter
if it shall ever come to sound as my own,
we will get our natural gait
even 30 years hence
when I am cussing & spitting
& have forgotten this backseat poem
which I am trying to kiss into the inseam of your lip
& moreover after much under
I will remember- you are not perfect,
but you are growing
not to meet my fantasy
not like a childhood snowman
to consistently melt once the Oklahoman perogative sweeps in
you are growing like perspiration during a race I'll never win
I may not even finish
like it's mid-July & I cannot breathe
but if I could, I'd scream
for the sloven distraction
of winter's wild
you are real
as the vacant air that encircles me
(which I hardly notice)
as the taste of the temperature from your distance
(which I do)
& together we are strange
we are unorganized
like thriftstore silverware
like white hands clapping in a southern baptist church
but when we meet the beat,
when we are useful and wise,
it is a reason to believe in miracles
the purpose of building all that wonder
I see the hanging gardens of babylon in your focused gaze
I feel the colossus of rhodes in your mediated touch
someday I want the wrinkles of my hand
to invade into yours from clasping
the anchor of us too tight
may you find solace in this phrase-
the day will come when I will release you
our beauty & passion are youthful joys
may it be the same day, same hour, same moment
when you find no need for this backseat poem
may the embers of lust & interest spark slowly
like a memory changed
chained from then to now, from now to
growing crooked from want of fair-weather & starshine
growing straight by a choice of watering
the love in each other.

Graffiti

you should know I kept writing

though you begged me to stop

said we weren't doing anything

except digging daggers down deeper

except watering & widening winter's wounds

& I knew, as I usually do, that you were right

I wrote 

anyway

I had to keep penning the SOS with each heartbeat

it wasn't in me to stop

it would've been worse if I had

I knitted you too well to me,

cross-hatched bone to bone

I wrote you in my eyes opening each day knowing they wouldn't rest on you;

in the long lonely walks beneath the spectrum of autumn branches;

in the many meals that had lost all flavor;

in my hunger to never eat again.

I tagged your name everywhere

and added 

some bridges were meant to burn

others should never have been built. 

Weary

I know why my mother moved so slowly,
why my father stayed down when he sat
there is a weary ache in my bones
which sleep fails to appease
it's the hollow of something missing:
youth, or hope, or time
I sometimes feel I am becoming ghostly
before my body has even gone
I sometimes feel my spinning stop
the fertile energy which rotates this space
settles at my side
she relocates her turn into a yearn to
Remember?
Remember.

Circleskirt

she has hips
that could birth a religion
the kind of layers
you'd need a rosetta stone to decipher
on the day she was born,
she was regarded as less
than a charcoal lump of disappointment
the world has not been clever enough
to erect monuments in her honor
most days you can still see
the cracks in her skin where starshine
is draining out
it's only been seven years
since the last time she tried to die
to prove, they were all right
but I see her
she has the kind of hips
that were made for riding love hard
the kind of backbone built
to prove, they were all wrong
on the day she was born,
there was no welcome mat
there was only daybreak
which has tried to break her
and has failed

Tempus Edax Rerum

I used to be a beauty
you wouldn't believe it, to look at me now
I used to be cathedral holy,
before I refurbished this jesus-house
women in my world cannibalized self/other
trying to become something beautiful
the female of our species knows how to be sexy:
cut, curl, diet, burn, bleach, pin & cover
until bile is all that we taste from meals missed and forced down
until we can't even remember our natural hair color
I am not made of rock candy
I was not made to market my funny face
I wouldn't have it any other way
my reflection used to be a quick and embarrassed stranger
until I learned the courtship waltz
of my own full-grown principles
whoever I thought I was dying to attract
could never fill the void
which loving myself has.

NPR

Rethinking every word but standing thick while questioning:
I'm worried because NPR keeps asking for money
like I'm the only one listening
and I'm broke.


I'm worried because I think most people finally fall in love only
when they're losing someone.
At least it's true for me, so I leave a little more every day
as I scream into the loud sound of your silence
your addictive elocution: exquisite
I've never missed the shape of your voice as much
as when it is not on the round-about of my neck
I've said too much
All I meant is here-
time is kinder, softer, sweeter
with you near.


I didn't tell you that I wouldn't mind hiding in your pockets
the soft crevices of your spine
marinating in the words of a book written in a language
that I will never master
even now, my tongue wanders the chapel of my mouth
as a caged bird
rolling each syllable around as wildfire rain
I wanted to be carried around and sprinkle buttercup kisses
on your Everywhere
carried only
until you are ready to let go.
I didn't tell you that I wouldn't mind being
the one you leave.


I still listen to NPR even if I'm the only one.
I like to think the folks there don't mind
speaking into the void
that getting by
matters more than money
that there are things that must be said
even & especially when no one is listening

Royster Bryant Taylor the 3rd

five years ago
I stopped calling my dad
it was his punishment
for being too old to make the mistakes
he kept making
after all, he's the one that taught me
this is what families do
we do not stay to heal what has broken


yesterday I kissed a girl
whose girlfriend did not know
I thought I was too old to make the mistakes
I keep making
so here is where I run
unintentionally bleeding watercolors
and character being the stain after the fade
I cannot blame my father for this


but maybe
he deserves a call

The Color of Sound

I actually thought
ben harper was white
that both jack johnson & tom waits
were black
that sound came in color
as a child I thought
being in love
was like a piñata explosion
bursting with a sunset ride
with the prizes of life
trailing shortly behind
until that awkward age when
growing up was no longer fun,
I wanted to think there was still a knight for me
a fairy tale wedding, picket fences,
pitter-patters


At six I was gonna get big just to eat oreos
and nothing else, all day
I'm serious
I thought adults could do anything
I thought clouds might be made of cotton candy
and if I could find my way up there
I'd leave a disastrously sticky sweet mess of the world
and I could
and I have


I think of love, especially at sunset
when the sky is a confectioner's wetdream
on mountaintops I have felt clouds
slip through my fingertips
colorless, substance-less
this is the love I know


At eight I really thought there were fences
that separated states and countries- just like the maps
I still feel more european than american
& am fully aware I don't know
what either really means
but that it's tragic to only have one hometown
or to ask permission to travel my earth
those lines that I thought were fences,
really are there.


In the space between six and eight I grew a taste
that not everything is possible
I've spent most of my time here learning the rules
and the rest, imaging otherwise
clinging to love's promised fairytale
knowing the whole time that for me,
it does not exist.

Tony the Tiger Died Today

the saddest word is hope
in true happiness:
it does not belong
lucent gloss
false resolution
to a dilemma
oh the whispers I heard in the fire
of her night words...
if you hold her
just right
she will keen to you
don't take that to mean
there is any meaning
but the one you give

Drift (GoT)

The sky is not an answer

the ocean, not the question

I've allowed a rabbit cry

to cobble my feet-

Run north, she screamed

frostfangs gouging out the horizon
sucking on the promise of sunrise

the sky is not an answer

run to it anyway

for the sake of bedding into the question

I am not your home

I'm as much a crow as sparrow

pluck my feathers

to see which way I bleed

I won't be back this way 

this way

I'll come on snowback

ice lick

hurried down by slope and folly

ripe is the now

here is the reason

if you see more than a yes in anyone

you've been looking too long

expecting sunrise at midnight

there is peace in the drift 

find me there

Written in the International Year of Cooperatives

listen to sound of the distant drum,
this is truth you can't turn from
we are gaining our momentum
the universe hum of our rising anthem
you ask what I need
& it's a weak plea- just don't fall for me
when we met, I confess, I wasn't ready
but my boat has never sailed steady
even at my best
I am still a fish on land
grasping at handholds to stand
You demand I feel these words before they're said
to know we are exactly where passions have led
I disagree, invariably: bliss is vicious
she guides our listless bodies to borrowed riches
there is a way to create a someday we can take
to make a bait for fate and slake her wake
I don't want you to smother
our flickering flames to the ground
how can we lean on each other
if we're both laying down?
my bottom lip is being bitten
it's so obvious that I'm smitten
heaven only knows where this goes
don't feel insecure, demure or baited
the why is a lie that we are
secure, pure or endurably sated.
this is the epitome of very right now
if you're wary, I'll show you how
I'll vow, we are only as holy
as this lonely moment will allow

Tomb of the Unknown

Dear Young Man, 

(though if you still lived

you'd be older than my grandfather)

I wanted to write to you

to say I am sorry

there are too many battlefields

if anyone falls down alone

if anyone's name is whispered in time

like a secret

the key to our crumbled civility

I want to miss the feel of your soft locks

I want to know if you had 

a someone somewhere

who missed them

I want to streak naked in your cemetery:

a garish blasphemy for those

content in the emperor's clothes

But, my dear young man

I am more like you than anyone above

when I fall, it will be into my own arms

fighting for a path garrisoned by my own feet

I will not need a ticker-tape parade

I will only need, as you have enjoyed,

a life of head-held-high

and a soft place to rest.

Between Plumbeous & Smalt

I don't mind that you can't recall the color of my eyes
you excused-
I look down when I smile
it's true
for now I am the guardian of my bliss.


Veritas whispers,
they aren't mine anyway
the only color they are
is the color they aren't
& also by the way
your eyes create the color you see
so they're more you
than me
moreover, sweetest pickle,
each atom is only ever on loan
soon it will be part and parcel
of my evaporated glance

Free Verse

I am only just learning my name

it didn't grow the way the rest did

from the inside

out

it was placed on my face

and rhymes with

these times and

this place

similarly,

of course my verse is free

I didn't know it had a name

my lyrical vocabulary

didn't grow the way the rest did,

from the outside

in

quickly it is scratched

with canine teeth and the stuff of which

babies are made

and rhymes with

one day, you too,

will fade.

Well Done, Sandra

on a long enough timeline
things begin to click
gravity, which made this mess,
will start to explain
what he meant
when he pushed: grow & fall
watch the trees to understand
collapse
our brevity is a hiccup in existence
This fact
does not change anything,
my love.
let's contemplate the fast spin
and slow stop
the breathing of the world's womb
then nestle in the wound
our universe is a body
grown by gravity
to hug itself
and isn't that the loneliest thing?

अतिसृजति (forgiveness)

If these quilled reeds kept more focus

I might be a polyglot

As it turns out

I'm finger-painting languages

As in, left shoulder do svidaniya

right shoulder oui, un peu

I have sat with mtf, gid, lgbtq,

An alphabet of other & more than

beloved, gender-gifted, body

Focus

the theories of the big crunch

Of a nesting hyperdisplasia 

Of Dostoevsky's manifesto on manipulation

can wait

remove the layers of worry & wonder

there is enough time for all thoughts

wrap your mind around this moment

be the conch listening under the waves

to it's own rhythm

be the mountain that does not sway

with each breeze

be the tallest sequoia
who has weathered the iciest winter

above all else,

forgive yourself

for becoming.