Three Poems by Ken Taylor

clearing without reversal

hawk or death: a way of saying balance
isn’t fair. tipped to seamless fletching &
heat-seeking scurry in municipal flowers.
cast,aerie,kettle: rehearsing wrath on
fir cones. speech higher than the binary:
civic containment: shattered arithmetic.
all statutes on their side: illegal to kill or
capture or possess a hawk dead or alive.

until verticality’s undone & the food chain
top tumbles down thru utopian parkways.
cooper’s, sharp-shinned, red-shouldered
vestige rung by crowd funding of hitherto
consumed. in the argot of rabbits: a hawk
is always a hawk: unless it’s a cabbage.

heat lightning

the ether pulls back curtains & evergreens
inside a frock drama comb other eyes for
prompts. deciduous spend false currency.
last of the stragglers ushered to the stalls.
their marquee said: will shock, burn or cause
death. everyone assumes a bracingposition.
over the moon a pebble sky blisters copper.
seconds duped by curvature mime woozy tin.

endowed by unseen hands stars think inside
a bigger box stage-whispering change work
orders: asking the color wheel for otherness
to gray. we return to normal enough & nymph
light: orchestral decrescendo to cricketscape:
small-d denouement: no fire this time.

lyric comportment

peanut butter spread truth by untruthful
fare: startled splay after dare of tucking
in. trickster thirsty for knowing flew into
sequel by lapping a lap the jackal licked:
prodigal mouse mishap via lituus trigger
tripped for toothsome we might pray on:
soul to keep. daedal double flip into catch
& no release portal with big womb splash.

or take the first tomb from the epicenter
to make the next devastation. horsewhip
seared onto tablet & commodity uttering
crack down on swoop of lesser lit nether
lip at false supper. o happy rush to bait
& switch frenzy: eclogue con & crush.

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About the Author

Ken Taylor lives in North Carolina. He is the author of the chapbook, “first the trees, now this” (Three Count Pour 2013). His poetry has been
included in several anthologies and has appeared or is forthcoming in Hambone, VOLT, The Offending Adam, Blackbird, 3:AM Magazine, OCHO, Verse Daily, elimae, MiPOesias, Carolina Quarterly, Litmus Magazine, Cloud Rodeo,The Chattahoochee Review, Southword, Posit, ARDOR, can can, Gigantic Sequins, Finery, So and So, Clade Song, and others.

Image

Post image from a photograph by Irene Kredenets (Unsplash).