2 Poems by Jeffrey L. Taylor

Coyote 6

Coyote is an untrustworthy guide.
He’ll abandons you half way
through the desert.  There are
things to eat here.  I see him knock
the fruits off several kinds
of cactus, raid a saguaro
for water.  He sees
I can make it
to our next rendezvous
without his help.  He is needed
elsewhere.  He has my money.
Guides through this desert are scarce.
I am on the right path with
sufficient momentum.  He’s shown me
enough desert wisdom to make it
to an urban desert
further up the road.

See him there, soliciting
under a No Panhandling sign.
I have the remains
of a cactus fruit
for his hat on the ground.

Coyote Vanishing

Coyote, sly old devil, rejoices
in the untelling of the old stories.
“Of course,” proper people say,
“he doesn’t really exist.  He’s
just a myth.”  It’s
an invisibility cloak
he didn’t have to pay for.

Coyote never has
a dime to his name.
It never stops him.
Nothing ever stops Coyote,
except Coyote himself.
All Coyote does
is about himself.
He originated
ironic self-reference.

—

Jeffrey L. Taylor’s first submitted poems won 1st place and runner-up in Riff Magazine’s 1994 Jazz and Blues Poetry Contest. Encouraged, he continues to write. Serving as sensei (instructor) to small children and professor to graduate students has taught him humility.