The Poet SPIEL

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Internationally published American artist/author Tom Taylor / The Poet SPIEL savors the past, dares the future, swallows the present; steady hand, open heart, countercultural, passionate, sardonic, sometimes absurd. Born 1941. USA., as a child, the artist's temperament was already edgy and precocious. For survival in the farm world he'd fallen heir to, making art allowed him to discover that he could freely create his personal child-view of a complicated world where everyone was bigger and smarter than he. Amidst his 9th decade on earth, coping with losses associated with dementia, art is the friend which has withstood the petty and the foolish, the graceful, the garish, and the grand of a diverse career in the arts. He could make a dark poem or a sunny picture, a sad picture, or a pretend picture. He could define the me of that moment—happily wishful, pissed off, and lonely, hungry for something he did not know. Making any kind of art, as work, as play, as sustenance and medication, has rescued him from drowning in the chaos of his troubled and hungry mind. destined to express the manic-depressive disorder he'd inherited from his mother's blood. A family curse, indeed; but one with coping tools he's acquired through introspection and talk therapy so he is able to work it through by painting or writing its discomfort to more easily recognize it, then, better cope with its horrors. It's taken him a lifelong pursuit to become reasonably competent at understanding why he is the way he is and how to accept his Self. The arts are his safe place.)

The Best Poem Of The Poet SPIEL

Naked Arms

naked arms

they may be hungry
but they are not cold

they learned first
not to be cold
not to wear a coat
because there was no coat

you see them at grunt work
on hiways on rooftops on farms you see
them pushing snow pushing manure
no coat like they are not cold
tho you are freezing everyone is freezing

the old ones survived
the border crossing
determined to tolerate
anything for a penny
just for this opportunity
they could not afford to be cold

their kids' kids' kids still crawl out
from beneath old truckbeds
or plywood lean-tos down at the tracks
to walk to school to learn english
with their faces scrubbed
but without coats with naked arms

you want to say:
are you hungry
are you cold
tho you know they are not cold

if you gave them your coat
they would not wear it
they do not wear coats

bulk beans or rice suffice

but they are not cold

_______by The Poet Spiel

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