Cheyenne Scott Taylor — Three Poems
Real-Serious-Stupid-Shit
I am a naked woman
brushing my hair in a blue mirror:
I sit sweet and sour between my vanity and the honey citrus sun.
I stew on soulblood material: Vanilla icecream, the Vietnam War,
the crackle in my father’s voice, and how good it felt to tell the world
to go fuck itself on the last day of 8th grade, and how good it felt to believe that
that sort of thing mattered.
While it may be true that I am nothing but a naked woman,
Sometimes, I do push-ups that tear the Earth from the atmosphere,
& I open the window so my cat can twist in the languid sunshine,
& I tell myself that I will become
so much more than a naked woman
losing her mind in the smoke and perfume of her reading room.
I am a naked woman drowning,
In water and blood and confetti,
& I make chicken noodle soup and real magic and wild wind
& I make myself cry better than anyone else ever could,
& I fantasize about lovers I could never have,
& I like to think about what it would’ve been like to
punch that kid in the face on the playground when I was nine,
because he deserved it, and because I deserved it too.
I make fresh sourdough from his imagined tears;
I make civilizations out of my real ones.
I do all sorts of real-serious-stupid-shit
& it is everything.
A lifetime of pirouettes and gunshot wounds,
An opera put on by little daisy fresh girls
Who knew better than you, and always will.
I am a naked woman soaring—
A red hot daydream whisper for the century
I let Dostoevsky and Baldwin and God tear me apart
And all of this before bedtime, before my time is up.
I do this just to show up and be truly alive,
Because this is what it takes for me to keep my gaze tough and silver stern,
as the plastic world takes its aim at the back of my neck
with weapons my father, and his father, and his father,
have never even seen before.
New Ways
So, I am reading what an old man told me is Hemingway to a room full of my peers,
and sure, it starts out like Hemingway, the back cover says something about a soldier or a bullfighter or a fill in the blank example of an aggressive man,
but what no one in the room knows except for myself and the old man who handed me the book, is that it was not Hemingway at all:
I’ve been reading Dr Seuss this whole goddamn time,
and in this Dr Seuss book, this Dr Seuss book that I am pretending is Hemingway, that for some reason everyone is believing me when I say it is in fact Hemingway,
the pages have little pictures of orange and green fluffy monsters,
and the poetry is written in the stripes that curve and shape their little monster arms and legs.
I think they look a lot like the kids I want to have one day, these monsters, and
for a moment and not one more, I feel the sort of milky-twilight wash that comes with being a child, and with being constantly on the verge of accepting new things,
like new ways to multiply,
or new ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle,
or new ways in which I might solely be responsible for saving the world in the end,
so I do not ask myself how the old man got this elusive never before seen Dr.Seuss poem,
I only accuse myself as being stupid
Because now I have to ask myself, did Hemingway even write poetry anyway?
Did he?
And I think I’m scared of what I have to do, this continuous reading of Dr Seuss while pretending it’s Hemingway. I think I’ll take you with me while I figure this out, because don’t you agree? Don’t you think we’ve found ourselves in the dumpster fire of a lifetime?
So I finish reading the Dr Seuss book, and no one calls me out for my little crime,
and I look up if Hemingway ever wrote poetry,
and I think again if anything new will be invented:
Like a cure for cancer, or a new way to say I love you, or a new way to recycle, or a new way to get around the earth, a new way to exist, a new way to believe that we collectively are worth it and can push ourselves to and fro’ and can have it in us to invent a new way out of this, a new way to believe that we are worthy of redemption for our sins, a new way out, a new way of coming back from the grave, a new way to love our country not for what it is but what it could be, a new way to make shit shine, a new way to get back on track to finding a new way to stop destroying ourselves, a new way to see color and song and brilliance in a world that hates us.
If you want to know, Hemingway did write poetry. At least 88 published pieces. Don’t ask me about them, though; I’ve only been reading Dr. Seuss this whole time.
What Does It Mean to Live a Life of Contrition?
I’ve become consumed with heretic visions,
of wind blowing through me, and into me, and about me
& because I know women
who are draped in the meanings of others,
who are truly everywhere, but only in concept and never in real-time,
Nor in the sunlight, or direct light, or limelight,
I’m terrified that I might be like them, just a concept, only an entity, never really here
So what does it mean to live a life of contrition?
I thought about this and about parents on airplanes,
& dreamers under the earth,
& lovers in-between doorways,
now I wonder, on nights like this,
Where breath becomes rare, and thoughts become risks,
When did my body become this anemic silly thing for my mind to do what it will with?
When did I become only an instrument, tool, conduit?
this game of “a long time coming”, of buying $100 dollar dresses to cry in, of hopscotch neverending,
when will I know if the means ever hunger to take life from the ends?
Is it a life promise that is never to be earnestly actualized?
Maybe I could run forever if you tell me I must.
I imagine it possibly inhabiting a tightly screwed-on head, having once been attached to shoulders of stone, now falling into some grand relapse of sea-swallowed rose petals and torn pieces of faded cloth.
see, people are frail things, mercy is frivolous, and night-time is a vanilla dream of self-purification through blitzkrieg. Say it with me:
I’ll call the cops if you promise not to scream—
Perhaps it is:
The transcension of a memory in repose: in which butterflies who are asked to serve do not report for duty, & in which the clock only ever strikes 12, & in which my time is up, & I looked in the wrong place, & it wasn’t the right day, there was something rotten in the air, it just wasn’t my luck, it just wasn’t real.
It just wasn’t you,
You,
You were never you,
You never ripped out dirt, you never climbed walls, you never screamed, you never tore, you never languished or wailed or wept or stormed or prayed or mourned or laughed or died.
maybe it is all of this.
& you know it’s funny – I’ve never been a cynic, but I’ve always been a liar.
