The Deuce Coupe Nominations for Best of the Web

from November 2009-October 31, 2010

Jason Ryberg…The Time, Being

Hosho McCreesh… A Dark Desperate Kind of Luck

William Taylor Jr. … Lives Like Landfills

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Lives Like Landfills by William Taylor Jr.

In spite of promises, oaths
and the best of intentions

I stand but dumbly by

as the hours slip
and spiral out.

She lies on the bed and cries,
she tells me she is broken.

I understand
but don’t know what to do.

I suppose it’s like this
everywhere,

lives like landfills
of disappoints and regrets.

I too wish the days and the hours
were something more than this
gradual decline.

I wish the silent gods
would find new ways
for us to burn.

The day shrugs and gives
itself to the darkness

as I ignore the ringing
of the phone

on my way to the kitchen
in search of more wine.

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Portrait of 6th Street on a Tuesday Afternoon by William Taylor Jr.

The world is just knives and stones
forged by vengeful
bitter gods

we wander through stillborn days

tongues coated with
the metallic taste of despair

addled with loneliness

all the pretty suicides
smile sadly from every corner

beckoning with skinny fingers

as the afternoon teeters
and falls off its stool

any meaning you might
try and pin to it all
fades and tears like old handbills
from Market Street lamp posts

and all that remains
is whatever stares back at you
from spittle stained windows

your wounded animal self
naked and ashamed

uglier even than your dreams.

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For Any Of Us by William Taylor Jr.

The poems aren’t faring very well today.

The sky looks tired
and newspaper headlines
tell the story of a girl
who went and got her head
chopped off
for no reason I can understand.

I guess today’s not too good
for any of us.

On the way to work I stop by a bar
and decide to stay there.

The people in the bar look the way people in bars
have always looked.

They talk too loud about the same things.

The same jokes are etched across the condom machines:

This gum tastes funny.

The same man sits in the same corner
and talks to someone I can’t see.

I buy a beer for the girl with her head
chopped off
and we talk awhile until she gets bored
and says she has to go.

I ask if we can meet again and she says
maybe.

After four more beers
I step outside

to find the sun has gone off sick
and the sky frightened with clouds
afraid to weep.

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Indian Summer by William Taylor Jr.

Polk Street,
San Francisco.

A sky all California blue.

It’s October again

and I sit at a sidewalk table
with a glass of wine,

dreaming of nothing

other than the women
walking up and down
the avenue,

all of them so lovely in their
green and yellow dresses,

an argument death
will never win.

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What’s Left of the World by William Taylor Jr.

The day doesn’t want to be here.

The sky’s given up
and the sun’s run out of tricks.

The suicides
fill the night and shine
like unnamed stars

and you’re weary
from the effort it takes
to pretend to be something
more than lost,

from clinging so tightly
to what’s left of the world.

Running out of places
to hide the corpses
of  all your murdered hours,

and nothing left upon the earth
you’d even want to steal.

Embarrassed
by the kindness of strangers
and fallen out of love
with your sins,

your heart crying
like some spoiled child
for something new to love
or to destroy.

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This Drunken Reeling Beneath a Dying Sun by William Taylor Jr.

Awkward and absurd
in this moment in time,

lost among the lost,

lacking the grace of God’s
finer things,

we are given so little time
to be beautiful.

Our tiny lives

so soon forgotten,

so soon

just lists of things
to sell or give away.

The dance is a strange one,

and I could not hope to offer
any dream of meaning.

I only know 

this drunken reeling
beneath a dying sun
is all we are,

this briefest of instants
as we brush death aside

to wait jealous
and vengeful in the hungry shadows.

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