Three Poems by Randy Taylor: Righteous, Under Foot, Package

Three Poems

By Randy Taylor

Righteous

We used to paint the town black,
Spin the wheels backwards
Those days when school was here
And work was there
And we were snagged on a nail in-between,
Hanging with the rust and mold—
What is and will be.
Pole dancing with the rusty cross—
Wind and rotten breath our music,
We taught the world how to dance.
Pissing Wild Irish Rose on the temple by Tombigbee,
To fill cracks in the brick and wash away the dust—
We painted a new shade of red
For Demopolis – the city of the people.
But we always looked good.
Freshening breath with Darvocet,
Injecting enough peace in our veins
To spread and pour like oil
Around the Vine and Olive Colony.
Throwing pizza to the dogs at Main and Cedar
Turning and tossing a “fuck you”
To Mary in her stained glass at St. Leo’s,
Her cracked hands guiding the way
To the nearest bar past the warped rail tracks.
Near Black Warrior, we’d take communion—
Seagram’s and a tablet of codeine—
Pray and puke the chunks on gravel,
Fall to our knees and bathe our faces
And our sins were washed clean.
In the city of the people.

Under Foot

A brick with six round holes
Crushed down to three
On a bed of hustle bustle in the wind
Soggy Pall Malls meet amidst the jagged edges
And the cap of Seagram’s tips its hat
Conversation of the street
Big city gab on muddy water leaves
Smoke and plastic wrap
Snagged on the edge
Crinkle and wrap around the scene
Its vice grip on 1st and 31st
A smog
A haze too wrinkled to size up
But all together
Prattle aside an overturned bucket
With a rusty handle
Dripping bloody water dew to the curb
Stockpiled under his porch
And he stands on it.

Package

They tied a string through my dick,
Taped it laterally
With enough room at the corners
For drops of blood to roll.
Strapped down—
A suitcase on the hood.
Leaking Pyridium,
Pissing blood and cranberry juice,
Staining the floor
Looking for lost treasure,
Straining piss and playing in the water hose,
Gravel and sand,
Rocks and bits of gold
Fell from my prick—
What I used last Thursday
In a twenty-year rolling scream
Of human passion
And a spray of rushing humanity
Reduced to pleasures of
A two-year-old,
Fidgeting with a package
That can’t be untied.
Rolling a tongue
Over Jolly Ranchers,
Instead of ripping sheets,
Tossing pillows,
And pissing never-ending rivers
That flow without barriers…
For now, I cry from above,
As well as below.

Randy Taylor is the director of Interdisciplinary Studies- Liberal Arts/ Education Specialist at Radford University in Radford, VA. His work has been published in Pif Magazine, The Unrorean, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, and Floyd County Moonshine among others. Taylor enjoys drawing inspiration from the surrounding foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and his well-established roots that run into the deep southeastern United States.

Copyright 2013 © Brock Meyer. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.