Thursday, May 19, 2011

Nicole Taylor: Four Poems

Columbus Day 2005
Or Ellen and Elizabeth
Read left column to right

Ellen offers Elizabeth
a quick car ride across the small city.

She turns right
onto busy highway entrance Keubler Road.

They talk of
an upcoming dance at a church.

They talk of
their light sermon style.

Ellen misses the
immediate northbound freeway exit.

She stays on
the old dangerous highway.

They pass several
black metal coyote decoys in the nearby field to the right

“Look at the
sun,”  Ellen watchfully announces.

It is a 
bright orange yellow autumn afternoon sun.
There is no
music in here or out.

There is much
  wind from Ellen's window.

Ellen is smoking
a non-additive cigarette.
They talk of
Elizabeth’s monthly disability income.

They talk of 
  upcoming social security disability income.

They talk of
  should, could have done’s in the disability case.
Ellen turns onto
  Silverton Rd., then 45th Ave.
She turns into
  the gym parking lot near sports fields and rooms.

Dance practice is
  now thirty minutes away at the community college gym.

Ellen moves gears.
  They joke about Elizabeth’s
  neighbor’s slipped gears, “clutch.”

October 20, 2005



"Dad, 1998."
a newer VCR, used videos,
a newer camera and accessories,

wooden boxes with pewter Celtic lids,
photos, books, posters, 

other memorabilia
from a trip to England taken long ago

miscellaneous blown glass pieces,
paintings from friends and local artists,

miscellaneous dishes,
utensils and appliances,

an old wooden TV cabinet,
a handmade wooden stool, yo-yo, and pencil holder.

colorful glass Christmas ornaments inscribed
"Dad, 1998."

Eugene Traveler
Pieces of A Borrowed Poem
Published in small chapbook and 
for a Poetry Box in Eugene, OR

I’m creating not crying,
not this time.
I’m waiting, riding Amtrak bus,
but Kesey, friends jumped tracks,
hitched rides.

Saw Kesey’s statue, The Storyteller –
read his words of his plants –
nettle and clover,
ghost fern and more.
Rode the EmX bus and
watched the Breeze busses
to U of O or Lane Colleges
in the city of a
kind tree and a DanceAbility.

Watching now
a bright yellow Morning Glory store.
Walked past the Green Store and
The Red Agave.
Sat watching the local Jackalope Lounge
and the trendy Buffalo Exchange.

I’m writing in the shadows of
ghosts and ghost stories
after browsing the Beats at bookstores
and buying two by Kerouac.

I’m waiting outside Amtrak
father, son hoping to visit Wisconsin
mother, children traveling to Portland,
returning to Florida.
strange curious glances later.

Food Box Notes
Jo and her family
Lynn and other neighbors
Kim, Viola, ...
They claimed 7 occupants.
These people really believe this!?

8 boxes of sugary doughy Safeway donuts
and coffee while you wait.
coffee is brewing,at least.

we arrive at 9AM
and wait until 10 AM
for intakes, numbers, foods.

we look at the colorful amorphous shapes
in the Morningside Elementary
with help from Stonehaven Ministries.

visiting with neighbors
church members
praying together, separately,
over Jo's son accidental shot leg injury
over another's on-going pains and diabetes.

then it's my turn.
simple questions.
that was easier than usual.

a blond teen church member hands
me bags and boxes of food
of white French bread,
white tortilla wraps
white navy beans
white mac -n- cheese noodles
white Safeway yogurt, sweetened

brown bakers
brownish sweetened apple juice

canned foods
large boxes of chips

Later that morning we stopped at 2 sales
I bought shirts and shows,
for more Qi-Jong practice.
for more laundry room volunteer wear.


My Short Bio
Nicole Taylor has attended college in Salem, Oregon where she lives near her siblings, British mother and other family. She has been published in her college newspaper, one local and one recipe anthology and some online. She has had two poems online at wordgathering.com, three bicycling and nature poems in a bicycling storytelling journal at http://www.myspace.com/boneshakeralmanac, one poem performed in her DanceAbility dance group, through Chemeketa College, http://building45.chemeketa.edu/issues/issue_one/inada_workshop.html. A dance member has read a few of her poems at campus Soapbox Readings and published one in her poetry e-mail newsletter, Very Local Poetry.

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