Peace

You can kick
a stone lion
as often as you like.

Though it will hurt
your foot,
you can never
persuade it
to bite you.

Everyman
his own prison makes
and keeps his peace
at bay.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Ancient Mariner To Clerk

There is no excuse for wearing
a collar that nips the skin,
not much excuse for sharing
the carriage they squeeze you in,
and what excuse for fearing
the box they’ll put your body in?

poem by Brian Taylor
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The Humble Were Great Once

The humble were great once.
Only a dunce
would wait
to be great
again;
would be again insane.

The genuflection
sees the boot
stamping and tramping
in the wrong direction.

Do not throw confetti.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Poetry

Poetry begins with pain
(like any other kind of birth)
but though it breeds and feeds on earth,
it aims at not becoming back again
and reaches to the roots of things
in search of the eternal springs.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Ethics

Ethics is the highest science,
concerned with survival,
not merely knowall.

A man without Ethics,
ever thinking
without seeing,
is already drowning;
ever sinking
ever lower
in his diminishing
sea of being.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Nobody Will Hear You Dead

Nobody will hear you dead.
It may be
in time
someone will remember
something you said.

Someone will forget.

Death is not an end to a beginning.
It unseams existence.
Einstein is running,
just ahead of darkness.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Transcendental Rose

The year’s first transcendental rose
stands where the self-sown apple grows.

No pride at being first is shown
nor discontent at standing there alone.

Among the rosemary and gorse
it is its own and only source.

poem by Brian Taylor
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A Poisoned Chalice

Education
breeds expectation.

Expectation
leads to frustration.

Frustration
is a suicide bomber.

Flowers of the Void
are not so easily destroyed

Insubstantial from the start,
they shine on in each empty heart.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Shell

The great doors swing
on noiseless hinges
oiled by the tears
of a thousand years,
keeping the outside out.

The doors are the doors
of the heart's desires,
trying to possess the eternal fires,
trying to keep the sun in.

poem by Brian Taylor
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Femina Dolorosa

She passes like a shadow
across a silent floor,
lit by a sun that follows
and a star that goes before.
And though I know she walks in beauty
that is not subject to decay
yet she shelters behind duty
from the glory of the way.

poem by Brian Taylor
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