Category: poetry alive

Poem I read out loud to a group of people last night at an ad hoc poetry gathering

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I like the word ziggurat a lot more than I like ziggurats

We will not associate with the noun
we will love the word for its z-ness
and its sound
its utter rarity
and for the fact that I once said rarity to you on your birthday & you remembered it
and titled a photograph “rarity”
and the photograph had many trees in it, only trees on a hill, long and leaning
and the rarity was that many of them, and was you
it was january twenty-third; you were twenty-four years old
we walked for hours there was not a single ziggurat in our mouths or in the trees
the trees has been planted quite planned quite public for all to see

this is not a story about ziggurats or bridges or the publicity of gardens
this is not a story about age or of how our mothers boast of our first and current talents
there is nothing of the triangle here
nothing of the sphere
this is a story about geometry, and not at all about geometry
this is a story I wrote for you so that you would remember it

(this is a story that only the two of us know)

Saul Williams.

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A friend gave me “said the shotgun to the head” when I was twenty. Said

friend is now married but still eats sandwiches at hours

inhospitable to sandwiches. Last night I dreamt

of Cornel West, woke up thirsty for the noise

of some man with stature and a boom. Hum diddly

couldn’t find the room inside this room to yell

but websites never cease to flaunt their wares

so here is sleek Saul Williams, staring fair.

 

And here is sleek Saul Williams:

“Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again – the first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, that the world’s greatest resource is love, and maybe even that God is a woman. With or without a belief in God, all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding.”

Get it while it’s relevant (my chapbook)!

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Seventeen poems. One epigraph. Acknowledgements. Photograph & cover design by Misha Marston Johnson. Sewn binding by Heather Garner. Limited edition (50 run). Only 5 small dollars. Click it, people; make it big.

(If you want one of these, write an electronic letter to taylormkatz@gmail.com.)

chapbook (noun): a small paperback pamphlet, typically containing poems or fiction.

Poem that I have memorized (Langston Hughes).

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Harlem Sweeties

Have you dug the spill
Of Sugar Hill?
Cast your gims
On this sepia thrill:
Brown sugar lassie,
Caramel treat,
Honey-gold baby
Sweet enough to eat.
Peach-skinned girlie,
Coffee and cream,
Chocolate darling
Out of a dream.
Walnut tinted
Or cocoa brown,
Pomegranate-lipped
Pride of the town.
Rich cream-colored
To plum-tinted black,
Feminine sweetness
In Harlem’s no lack.
Glow of the quince
To blush of the rose.
Persimmon bronze
To cinnamon toes.
Blackberry cordial,
Virginia Dare wine—
All those sweet colors
Flavor Harlem of mine!
Walnut or cocoa,
Let me repeat:
Caramel, brown sugar,
A chocolate treat.
Molasses taffy,
Coffee and cream,
Licorice, clove, cinnamon
To a honey-brown dream.
Ginger, wine-gold,
Persimmon, blackberry,
All through the spectrum
Harlem girls vary—
So if you want to know beauty’s
Rainbow-sweet thrill,
Stroll down luscious,
Delicious, fine Sugar Hill.

True Stories (Mine).

Published on by taylor mardis katz1 Comment

I attended a wedding this weekend. A beautiful wedding to be exact, complete with dancing, overmuch delicious food, mother nature’s offerings (it was in Lake Tahoe) and a lot of serious, goodtime chatting. Below are some of the responses to my issuing a statement along the lines of “I’m getting my MFA in poetry.”

* * *

Look at this setting—the type of scene you write a poem about, eh?

The last time I read a poem was in Sixth Grade. It was my own poem. I wrote it for Emily Eisenberg, and it was called “Beautiful This.” It was about all the things that are beautiful in the world and how she is one of them, and how she should notice all the other beautiful things around her. I wrote it for her so that she’d want to be my girlfriend. She didn’t want to be my girlfriend. I haven’t read or written a poem since.

So after you finish your MFA, what do you want to be?

{{45 second baffled silence accompanied by a sightless stare}}

Poetry! That’s lovely. I have a good friend that’s a poet. He’s actually not a poet; he works for the IRS. He writes poems for…for therapy, I guess.

Let me introduce you to Taylor, and since her mother’s not here, I will have to tell you myself that she was the Poet Laureate of Connecticut. And her father is an amazing athlete, a real runner and he used to be a great tennis player, too. Does he still play, Taylor?

I’m a poet, too. Did you hear my rap at the party?

I took two Creative Writing classes in college. We read each other’s poems out loud and then we talked about them and I’ve never done anything like that again.

I have a friend who got her MFA in Creative Writing! She’s in Zimbabwe now…or is it Ecuador? {Pause.} Anyway, she’s really nice.