Poetry: Selections From Scott Taylor
co-existence
there's
something disturbing
about
killing a june bug.
they don't
sting
and don't
look particularly menacing
have
almost a limited kind of intelligence too
if you
swing at them, they duck out for a while
and hide
behind the TV
or under
the table until things have blown over.
but they
buzz loudly
and will
occasionally get confused
do fly-bys
zipping by
your head
until you
are irritated enough
to go find
the fly swatter.
they have
hard shells
like
little plastic sacks
and don't
die easily.
and when
one is lying on his back
on the
carpet
legs
waving in futile rhythm
after
being struck down
he always
looks questioning
lying
there
helpless
and dazed
and that
makes
two of us.
wonder
why
i did
that.
he is
crippled
and there
is nothing i can do now
so the
best thing
is to get
a paper towel
and put
him down for good.
but we
have been snuffing each other out
for
centuries now
one more
in a
series
slide
cut short
so i guess
i shouldn't feel
alone
or
wrong
at least
not past
tonite.
wisdom
don't pet
the dog
(will
alarm the owners)
don't
smile at the child
(will
provoke parental defense)
don't
reveal too much in conversation
(will make
conservatives uneasy)
don't
laugh too loud
(will
irritate the people at the next table)
don't sing
in public
(will
alert the powers to emotional anomaly)
keep your
distance,
keep your
mouth shut,
pay your
taxes,
stay
incognito,
bottle
your pleasures,
never drop
your pants
and turn
the lights off
when you
leave the room.
BUST
‘EM IN THE MOUTH!
BOOM!!!
i smacked
him in the mouth.
he smacked
me back.
nature a'
laughed and laughed.
tis the
way of the world to have leopards jump on impalas
and big
fish eat littler ones
and grown
men beat the shit out of each other
on friday
night
for the
sake of entertainment.
what are
we to do, the bear fathers
kill their
sons
and female
spiders eat their hubbies
and
praying mantises rip the heads
off their
loved ones
in the
name of
instinct.
and the
aggressive and murderers
have a leg
up
on the
sane
because
nature
ain't sane
and the
rules of morality
were
written by
vulnerable
monks
nursing
their wine
sitting in
protective towers
and there
really is no
point in
arguing.
you can
side with
whomever
you want
to
no
avail.
mother
nature
was a
byatch prize-fighter
with brass
knuckles under
her green
mittens
until we
KOed her ignorant ass
once and
for all
with a
couple hundred billion
acres of
blacktop,
but at
least
we still
have
the title
fights
to watch
on the
tube.
Scott Taylor hails from
Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world
traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and
online publications, including Vast Chasm, Adelaide Literary, Unlikely
Stories, Literary Hatchet and Swifts and Slows. His novels 'Chasing
Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and his
novellas 'Freak' and 'Ernie and the Golden Egg' are slated for inclusion in an
upcoming anthology with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell
University and was a computer programmer in a past life.