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Best Poems Written by Taylor Graham

Below are the all-time best Taylor Graham poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Poetry Assignment

It was “Death” you drew.
You rolled that slip of paper
between your fingers 
thin as onionskin, 
and dropped it in your pocket.
Pastel lady, 

did you wish to spare 
us? You fluttered fingers 
over the basket, and drew out 
“Patio Party,” 
a subject we must address 
before we meet again.

How many great poems 
have been penned on Death? 
How many on a
Patio Party?

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Her Little Black Dress

It was perfect for any occasion, with 
the right accessories, like the traveling 
pieces Mozart carried court to court. 
No matter what style or instrument 
the reigning virtuoso favored, violin 
or piano left-hand, the master would have 
just the thing to sparkle an entertainment.

Just so. One small stone would sparkle 
at her throat, or her left hand, to favor 
the violet of her eyes. A virtuoso 
she was, a Mozart in the instrument 
of style. Perfectly right, one dress 
would carry her, court to court, as she
traveled through life on her accessories.

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Langue D'Oc, a Micro-Paradelle

Your love song lapsed into ancient French that April day.
I only understood the words of spring and heartsore
lapsed. Only love and heartsore, I understood your ancient 
words of the spring-day song into that French April.

You fabricate my pauses into repetition, silence speaks
of ages strung to rhyme in love’s difficult service
you strung into pauses in service to ages. Fabricate of
love’s repetition, rhyme speaks my difficult silence.

We practice tedium of vows till language breaks apart.
As if art should aim at science, rigorous, quantitative,
rigorous language breaks tedium. Science vows a part of 
quantitative practice till we should aim “as if” at art.

Till we lapsed into language. As your ancient ages only
fabricate quantitative French strung to that difficult
practice, science speaks of tedium and understood rhyme. 

The spring in service of love’s rigorous vows. April 
pauses, heartsore. You and I, apart. If love should aim 
my words at day, repetition breaks into silence of song.

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Pick of the Litter

PICK OF THE LITTER

The other pups sold for eight hundred,
a thousand. She was bought, returned.
Too bright, too hard. A diamond.
We got her for a prayer,
and now we’re paying. 
Oh those trickster-
sparkling eyes.
She’s price-
less.

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A Ghost-Town Church

Beside the last pew, 
a chipped white collection plate.
A ghostly blessing
if you toss a modern coin
through time and the barred front door.

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Wearing the Green

Under a fading Celtic moon, half
a coin left over from last night, my sheep 
are feasting on pasture lush and wild 
with turkeys’ wings. A titmouse chick-a-dees 
from an oak that’s spring-fresh green. 
On hands and knees, I harvest Indian lettuce 
for a salad. Do sheep wonder at my human 
foraging? I’ll come back home 
wearing colors of the field, muddy knees
grass-stained; I’m hungry to savor 
my tiny isle of green.

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Moonlight

Beethoven wrote his version
in sonata-form. But tonight
the Flower Moon throws white petals
all over the hillside, making
silent music, a silver 
chord. Can I, in my reflected
moon-life, hear it full
and whole?

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A Chansonette For Charles

(Charles II after the battle of Worcester, 1651)

They spur their horses from the bloody field, 
the battle lost – a story old as time –  
the King in flight, his kingdom’s fate is sealed
in common soil. And still the church-bells chime.

They spur their horses from the bloody field,
with Roundheads hunting King for every crime
of office and religion. Must he yield
his head now, like his father, in his prime?
His followers will see he’s well concealed.
The battle lost (a story old as time),
the head of state about to be Bastilled – 
but no. Just puzzle out this pantomime:
the King in flight, his kingdom’s fate not sealed.
They make him peasant, royal face begrime
and so obscured, you see the crown revealed
in common soil. As all the church-bells chime,

they spur their horses from the bloody field, 
the battle lost – a story old as time –  
the King in flight, his kingdom’s fate now sealed
in common soil. And still the church-bells chime.

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Concierto

From downstairs comes an overload 
of lies and suppositions
out of Washington. I shut the door
and open up a book of poems 
that chip and twitter like hard-
luck sparrows. And underneath 
that harmonic line, I tune 
in Rodrigo, who plaints guitar 
to sing of places no gentler 
by the blood that bears us, lung 
to brain and hungers. And yet, 
more beautiful than this evening’s
news, an elegy of strings.

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Badminton

A father and his daughter
playing badminton
in a weedy backyard without a net. 
How many times 
can the battering back-and-
forth connect to send a plastic 
shuttlecock flying? Stroke,
that’s 70, return again 
on a high easy arc, 71, while 

Mom fixes dinner (meatloaf 
again, count the grocery 
pennies, 79 a pound, and 
a husband with nothing better 
to do after work than hit plastic 
birdies). 

But they’re actual 
flying birds, 81, these
soaring plastic wings
rallied by a father 
and his daughter, 82, stroke
83, never 
let it touch the ground 
or you have to start 
all over again 
counting. Yesterday
they sailed to 99 before

dinner which is always
waiting.