Four Poems by Ann Taylor

 

 

Closed, Do Not Enter                                                                        

 

Our quest for Camelot near complete,

the Abbey graves, the Tor done,

 

but now a sign on the gate

to the Chalice Well –

 

the resting place of

the Last Supper cup, 

 

the cup raised to collect

Christ’s sweat and blood

 

at his crucifixion,

deep red in sympathy,

 

the cup paraded through

the throne room

 

of the crippled Fisher King

able to cure him, 

 

the cup, holiest one of all,

the Graal of King Arthur’s

 

court, finally earned by Galahad

for his purity of heart,                                     

 

the cup given by Christ’s apparition

to Joseph of Arimathea,

 

who carried it straight to England,

placed it in this red-water well, 

 

the cup that compelled us

to scale that gate. 

 

Saint Kinga’s Salt Chapel                                                                   

 

At the head of the nave,

a salt altar enshrines

my unworthy remains.

Here I reflect on my

once uncrystallized,

unsainted life.

 

I yearned only to be a singular

whisper down a candled convent hall

and out to a cloister garden beneath

the Creator’s sky uncircumscribed.

 

But fashioned a queen, a saint,

I must spirit this salt shrine,

mined in my honour,

where salt chandeliers glitter for me

and salt-frescoed walls tell my story.

 

At the base of this deep shaft,

my statue stands, my salt robe etched

in scrolls, my hair laced pretty

about my face, my crown faceted.

 

A miner carved of salt

kneels before me, offers

a ring encased in a salt

crystal block.

 

I want neither ring, nor rock,

just quiet candles,

earth dew-softened,

the caress of air chilled

or thawed with the seasons –

heaven’s gift. 

 

 

Constellation Pegasus                                                                   

 

For bearing his thunderbolts,

Zeus stellified his stallion

in truth, more a celestial dishevelment,

than a heavenly horse,

leaving it for tale-tellers

to finish the picture –

 

his divine birth

from Poseidon’s godly foam

and dying Medusa’s blood,

his hoofed-up watersprings

on Helicon, invoking poetry

from rock,

 

his soaring with Bellerophon

on his back to kill the lion-headed,

snake-tailed Chimera,

then bucking him off,

for the hubris of spurring him

too near the heights of Olympus.        

 

Zeus left his Great White steed

as an upside-down half-a-horse

with two rickety legs,

a probable neck, maybe a muzzle,

but still a stallion open

to gallop across the night sky,

enough to carry his stories.

 

Orders from Your Fairy Godmother

 

Fetch your flashlight, hide again
under your blanket,
your earliest castle built
just for you and the words.

Help Gretel stoke up her oven, 

fan the flame. Shut down

the witch’s cackles. Cheer

her incineration.   

 

Cry with the bullied duckling, punish his tormentors,

exclude them from the party

so they feel what it’s like.

 

Shiver when the hungry wolf huffs

at the pigs’ unsturdy doors. Applaud

Pig Three. Clap when the big windbag

gets stymied.   

 

Hop a fairy-dust ride in your pumpkin chariot. Savor Cindy’s sweet revenge.

Dance when the shoe fits

and she marries the handsome one.  

 

Do not overstudy Hansel’s eating habits, pity the witch’s wicked heritage,  

or question the innocent beauty

of the swan’s white feathers.     

 

For the literary life of you,

don’t ever forget whatever it was that held you so enchanted

in that secret flashlight glow.

Ann Taylor has long been a Professor of English at Salem State University in Salem, Mass. where she taught both literature and writing courses. She has written two books on college composition, academic and free-lance essays, and a collection of personal essays, Watching Birds: Reflections on the Wing. Her first poetry book, The River Within, won first prize in the 2011 Cathlamet Poetry competition at Ravenna Press. A chapbook, Bound Each to Each, was published in 2013. Her collection, Héloïse and Abélard: the Exquisite Truth, published in 2018, is based on the twelfth-century story of their lives, and her most recent collection, Sortings, was published by Dos Madres Press, in June of 2020. She is currently at work on a new collection of poems, called Taking Care.