Richard Allen Taylor

Tuesday

is grossly underrated, glad to be here, eager to get going.
Unlike Monday, it doesn't care that the weekend is over

or that it was not designated a national holiday.
Tuesday is morning news and handy tool, the good dog

that comes when you call, the horse saddled
and ready to ride. It's different from Wednesday,

which wants to be Friday, or Thursday, already dreaming
about the weekend. It's the second pot of coffee,

fresher than the first, the ball already rolling.  It's not at all
like Friday, watching the clock, making dinner reservations.

Tuesday is about direction, not destination, about dreams,
not history, about going somewhere, not arriving. You seldom

find Tuesday hanging out in bars, unless it's on a business trip
and has nothing better to do.  If it stays out late, it knows

Wednesday will complain. Tuesday is a go-getter, a rip-roarer,
the kind of day everyone wants on their team.  It almost never

gets invited to weddings or parties (except Mardi Gras) but more
than its share of funerals and insurance seminars. Tuesday works

more but has less time off than almost any other day. Even when
it goes on vacation, its has to tag along with Saturday

and Sunday and the rest of the family, who have already planned
the trip and scheduled the activities, usually without asking for

Tuesday's opinion. Tuesday is bells ringing, whistles blowing,
the fire engine leaving the station, not the most popular

day of the week, but the kind you might pick
as a business partner, the day most likely to succeed.

(This poem first appeared in Powhatan Review and subsequently in the author’s chapbook, Something to Read on the Plane, published in 2004 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company.)

At fifty-something
I begin to feel the rising panic

that probably gets worse later
as I watch the days flowing much too fast       

white grains
once immeasurable inexhaustible cheap common

now spilling like diamonds down the deep well of time
and I am leaning over the side

grasping at the avalanche just out of reach
and I cry wait

but there is no wait
only the counting of lost dreams. 

I should have paid more attention
learned more about art 

airplanes  geology
theology  insects   

even love   
I thought I knew what that was

but now
in the fullness of wisdom

I see that I know nothing
that life is always

one answer forward
two questions back.

And I ask
is this imminent emptiness so bad?

There is
something

in the heart
that craves open space

virginal blue sky
a smooth sea without ships

a cottage in the unpopulated wilderness
a yearning to clean closets 

toss out junk 
forget 

start over 
make room for the new. 

Perhaps hunger
is a preparing to be filled

longing
a thirsty desert flower opening to the rain

death
the last drop of wine on the lips

before the next bottle is opened
the hourglass turned.

(This poem first appeared in High Horse and subsequently in the author’s chapbook, Something to Read on the Plane, published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2004.)

I asked for
this primitive afternoon
away from it all

absent alarms, clocks, reminders
no traffic noise, no sirens
no voices

unless you count
the throaty gargle of the creek
that runs through this Texas ravine

or the whisper of bluebonnets
that sway like a thousand tiny bells.
All the traffic I need is here

the pebbled rush of water 
the sporty-convertible wind in my hair
a gray feather racing downstream.

The shadow I cast
sitting here on a flat rock
bare legs dangling in the current

points to
whatever hour I choose
to write with a wet finger.

(This poem first appeared in James River Poetry Review and subsequently in the author’s chapbook, Something to Read on the Plane, published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2004.)

Used here with the author’s permission.