William Taylor, Jr. , Poet

Like a Rose, Like a Cross

My father
in the garage  at 1 a.m.
smoking cigars
with spanish music
on the radio
my father
nervous in restaurants
and department stores
his disappointment with the world
shining in his eyes
and a rage that has no name
always just beneath the surface
my father's silence like a hand grenade
my father's fist
through the kitchen window
my father fighting  a war inside his head
fifty years after the fact
my father
the son of a drunken preacher
married to a catholic woman
hating god
my father at the dinner table
telling stories
no one understood
my father singing sad songs
in a strange language
pulling weeds from the yard
my father looking as uncomfortable
in photographs as he did in life
my father's face in my mirror
my father's blood in my veins
my father's voice in my throat
my father's name
is my name
I carry it like a rose
like a cross
my father's death
a seed inside me
blooming
into the strangest of flowers.

A Rainy Day In The City

I want this poem to be
like a rainy day in the city
and you've called in sick to work
or maybe just upped and quit
you've a decent bottle of wine
and you are alone and you play your favorite
records as loud as you please
and you sing
and dance around the house
like a goddamned fool
and your neighbors won't care
for they are all away at their sad old jobs
and your dreams are of people and places
far away and long gone
and you dance
as the rain
glides down the window panes
and the sadness and the joy
that fill you
are one and the same
eternal
and as pure and as beautiful
as anything you will ever know.

The Room

And you find yourself in this place
this bare little room
with no space to move
and a single door
leading somewhere you don't
want to go
and the walls bearing in around you

The days and the years have pushed
and prodded you here
you wandered like a sad animal
to a cattle car
with little protest

It seemed to happen suddenly
you always thought yourself
too clever
to be caught in this way

But now you are here
and the ceiling looms
with no time left

It seems rather late
to be thinking of escape

but there must be a way.

Song at the End of an Empty Day

Come, my love
drink with me
until we are dead
or reborn
into something new.

©Copyright 2006 by William Taylor, Jr.