I am a 71 year old, retired, police and fire dispatcher for the city of San Francisco. I have known from adolescence that I am a poet, but I largely put off writing poetry until I felt compelled by circumstances This moment of recognition was a terrible way to fall awake. I started writing seriously, if sporadically, in 2007. The purpose of building a web site for the poetry is not to promote it, but to acknowledge it by preserving it.
! ! February 17th, 2023 (6th Iteration) In Memory, Floyd Russell Taylor Also, Dedicated “In Pectore” ! ! ! Having arrived just prior to demolition, As if this were the gift of a scar to mark God’s favor, I was permitted to revisit the wings of the seminal seminary Where I had taken my deepest breath, Where my timid mind began to fly temerity. Distracting furniture had been extracted. … More February 17th, 2023/6th Iteration
! ! ! February 17th, 2023 (5th Iteration) In Memory, Floyd Russell Taylor ! ! ! Since that day, my days have dimmed. By the lookout, daybreak is gauzed by blinds, spliced by slats. They hide the seat where once I sat And foolishly hoped for the impossible. Walking through the afternoon monsoon, Searching for Oz, often, the rainbow flickers … More February 17th, 2023/5th Iteration
! Ghost weddings are practiced in China and other countries to ensure dead family members aren’t alone in the afterlife. They can unite two deceased partners or one living and one dead. ! February 17th, 2023 (7th Iteration) In Memory, Floyd Russell Taylor ! ! I sit contemplating this anniversary. Wooden window slats at half mast, as the … More February 17th, 2023/7th Iteration
* * Our Lady of Honey Dedicated to Michael Karl * * Her black hair is twined at the back. Her dusky skin, a beauty imbued with youth. Her hands composed, She stands so straight she appears tall. It is a stance of respect For those who approach the honeys. All around, the carnival can not conceive of her. * Beauty always intimidates with … More Our Lady of Honey
* From Below, Then Above * The Chile Cookoff at Borderlands Universalist Unitarian Church, Amado, Arizona, November 16th, 2024 For Michael Karl, For Jeff Dixon * We enter the grounds through the church, Which is disguised. It repurposed the premises, Nondescript, as if part of a ranch. No ranch here, Just nature, consecrated as land … More From Below, Then Above
In memory of the interment of my beloved husband, Floyd Russell Taylor, on August 15, 2023 White petals drifting downwardsBeautify the graves of the Earth.Even as spring flies into a summery sky,This whiteness is a lingering emblem of winter,And those who nod in sleep beneath the snow.One year ago, into their sodI commended your soul.Trees … More Drift
I am not (yet) proficient in Spanish. I shall have the Spanish in the poem checked by a professor when I return to Green Valley, AZ. The Apparition of Heaven 1st Iteration…English Version In Memoriam, Floyd Russell Taylor Everyone was leaving to go back North.They knew this vividness was coming, here.But the lure to go … More The Apparition of Heaven
* I wrote the fourth iteration at the very edge of my sanity, where sense looks beyond its fortress wall into terra non sense. I had a textbook in high school called, “Sense and Sound.” This poem is evidence, perhaps, that I err in being more in love with sound than with sense. However, poets … More February 17th/4th Iteration
* I realized that I could not expect anyone to read a 66 line poem commemorating Russ, except those few who are disposed to rendering me a very great kindness. So I tried again. I’ll post this poem on my Facebook page on February 17th. * February 17th, 2023 3rd Iteration Loosely, after a poem … More February 17th, 2023/3rd Iteration
! February 17, 2023 In Memory of my Beloved Husband, Floyd Russell Taylor ! As the day dawned, my husband lay in twilight, A room with a curtain drawn against both dawn, And the intrusion of a dark matter dawning, the ides of his death. Was he dying in this fade, or being born into … More February 17th, 2023/2nd Iteration
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