POEMS
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by
Taylor Gould
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The Montreal Review, August, 2010
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Healthfully Eating Organized Meals
Real Simple: Life Made Easy. A magazine.
I spot it like a blemish on the face of the coffee table
in the waiting room. It boasts recipes
for 20 twenty-minute dishes. Healthful and delicious!
It can tell me 14 ways to save money this fall.
Seven ways to keep peace between friends.
"Organizing secrets"
(and I don't know whether that's a piece on how to
organize your secrets, or secrets to good organization.)
But here I am
healthfully eating organized meals
which cost me next to nothing
holding hands with all my friends
who know nothing about me.
There's a new carpet in the other room
and it's off-white
and matches the furniture perfectly.
The cat threw up on it,
but I've been too busy living the Good Life
to clean it up.
The Revisionist's Life (a Poem)
Had I
been anyone
else, my longing
could HAVE suffered cold hands
or non-requite.
Success not WASTED
on those too blind
to see a very clear reflection
in all the glassiest
metals, I slept
on satins and women
whose skins
were of satin.
I saw as a boy
the chase of flashing lights
and firetrucks
or the warm embrace
of a white picket fence.
I had filled MY world
instead
with very many
wonderful things.
Looking back
I am unsure
whose LIFE
I had lived.
Happiness
Mom
your son is home. Dad
your son is home.
Ten months gone
fighting
the good old war; Mom
your son is home. Dad
your son is home.
Ten months gone
in serotonin trenches;
it's great
to see you smile
when I smile.
And If Anything, You'd Be My Favorite Time of Night
for Julia
It could've been anyone
to teach me the difference
between looking at an eye
and in an eye
but it was you, and I'm glad of that.
See, you feel to me like
the fresh calm
that falls over us all
after a storm.
You feel to me like the first sip of water
after waking up thirsty
in the middle of the night.
And if anything,
you'd be my favorite time of night
when the clouds sag
and beg us to climb up
and sleep in the bed of the gods.
I see you in the feather fingertips
that dance across my chest
as I disappear to sleep.
Or you could be the thrill
of good poetry.
The cool ice that crawls over your skin
when you hear the favorite line. Yeah,
that's it, the poetry-you're the poetry
and goddamnit
I've written my masterpiece with you;
where the excitation of creation
and the deep
real
quiver of the heart come to meet
and play and kiss;
where the beauty of the world
and the bright white of the page
lie together like we lay
that night
you taught me the difference
between looking at an eye
and looking in it.
Complicated Bereavement, or Anything Else But Taylor
They call it complicated bereavement disorder.
It feels like the just-inside
of a ventshaft, where the dust comes
to collect and colonize
and build armies for The March
on that sterile world.
They call it something else, they call it
this, and that, schizoaffective affected-
unipolar, bipolar, manic-depressive and
Taylor-they call me Taylor
and I don't pretend
to be anything else but Taylor
and still
I feel like the cold hand
burnt by the last wishful inhale
of a cigarette in the winter
too close to the lips.
I call it stark naked dreams
and the worry of getting a tattoo
you won't like in fifty years.
Oh, this is all so temporarily-permanent-seeming,
a loose strand in the mental seaming
and a goose
that's lost its V.
And complicated, it's complicated,
I bereave-lay sacrifice unto the feet of sorrow-
here I am, let me be, let me be!
I call it waiting in line
for an elevator that'll never come
and dog-scratch scars
or a mind's broken thumb. Mine's
all that, and it's the sorriest kiss
from apologetic lips
and a quick bereavement
in the name of the dearly and nearly departed.
Don't cry for me-not yet at least-
just call me Hope
or The Stitches between yesterday
and tomorrow
or Complicated
Bereaved
Angered
Deceived
or Anything Else
but Taylor.
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Taylor Gould is studying creative writing at Emerson College, Boston, MA. |
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Illustrations:
Adam Rhude. Adam Rude is a native from Cape Cod, MA. He studied at Savannah College of Art and Design, Walter Street Atelier and Studio 126, New York. Now he lives in Boston.
Rhude says about his work "I aim to portray the beauty in everyday life. In recording the familiar, I find things I can connect with. It is my hope these subjects, that carry personal meaning to me, might also offer unique meaning to others."
Adam Rhude works can be purchased at
The Brigham Galleries (54 Centre Street, Nantucket, MA 02554). Rhude's website: www.adamrhude.com |
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