January 2010

On November 19^th, The Poet Spiel gave a provocative performance at the Pueblo West Library. Much more than a poetry reading, the 90-minute event was a carefully orchestrated performance in which Spiel, also known as the artist Tom Taylor, alternated between the reciting of his poetry and the telling of personal stories.

His poems, which often used shocking language, included tales of a gay soldier and the death of the poet’s father. (See poems on this page.) The performance concluded with a recording of “Hairpin,” in which The Poet Spiel manages to craft often disturbing words into a beautiful and quite moving love story.

More information and excerpts of his poetry can be found at www.thepoetspiel.name

Weighing In

...Does a pint of the blood

of the homo at war

weigh less in a jar?

than a pint of blood

sapped from his foe?

or a pint of the stuff

from your average Joe?

Compare to a pint

of dirt or sand,

a pint of gold or a pint of lead.

Weigh a pint of the blood

of the homo soldier.

Phone his mother her son is dead. ///

on swallowing

...he’d called me by my name

just as the day before when much to my surprise

he had given me the gift that surely every son must wish

he had told me that he’d come to honor me as a man

this man who could no longer swallow

whose trembling disease would also rob his heart of the impulse

of when to beat and it would happen in this place

and on this day with milk upon his gown and green jello on his tray

...where his body lost its tune and he could not hold it still

his mind on track but could not send its signals

from a soup spoon to his mouth...