A Glint of Light from the Faucet – Scott Taylor

December 3, 2025

there is a weakness in me, even in younger years i knew it would stop me from being diamond.
we have become industry, and it has failed us, we have failed the earth.
does she know that i love her above all things, that she lies within me and sustains me, that she addicts my sinews like strychnine, i hunger for her like dying breath.
and i lived in a time long past, and grass was beneath my feet, and now iron rods pierce my eyes and i lie panting on hot coals, on a grate of steel and flame.
does she know that she is magic, that she is light from the sky, that she is a point of space in the time that passes in my gelatin mind, that i love her biceps, her soles, her innards, her oceanic eyes and the pearls of her physical wisdom.
there is a sadness in me that cannot be solved by sitcoms and newspapers and time shares and long vacations, there is a death in me that antibiotics cringe from.
africa haunts me, grozny haunts me, the starvation of pregnant women follows me into supermarkets and invades me through beer bottles and long empty pacings in halls. your towers wilt in the sun, your steel and concrete sell your paper god down the river and socrates humps your poodle while no one is looking.
we rape the ground and we build our towns and the soil screams in windy rage, but the moving dead bodies keep selling us cinemax and penny stocks and the pleasant hurrah of a sarcastic well-furnished living room and a country house in hell.
eyes melt, brains fry, synapses snap erotic and no one has ever ridden a horse, no one has ever hunted for dinner, no one lays in the field, instead there is calculus and tax season and air conditioning and child porn and cybernets.
there was a hunger in me but now it is gone, and the sea sweeps out to the ends of the world without remorse.
i see your brown hair for the first time in the cafeteria, i see your golden locks as i rise up from my birth, i see your perfect perfect feet assault me as the summer dawns, i watch your dark mysterious love bubble in my cauldron and leak away, i see you now as i did the very first day.
we rotate on screws and give away nothing, the first to yelp is first sacrificed, there is no second place and no second chances and the firsts are long dodo.
your beauty overwhelms me this night, shafts of light paint you dribbling down my cheeks and off my chin, i want you more than my chest can withstand.
computerized we dream in cubicles, the masses sing vh1 and fight it out for scraps in the street.
i am castrated, i am digitalized, the myriad strands converge until all i see is one folly, one sickness, one and only one choice, one retreat.
friday night is monday morning is 2006 is 3116.
is the a-bomb.
every urge is turned upside down, all that we want is denied, the sins of no one are thrust on billboards, on crosses, hatred and love collide, monkeys salivate in their sperm and spit forth young soldiers, yuppie lust drives cadillacs into mountain retreats and magazine covers, spent youth belies a gentle wisdom when the windows are cleaned and morning streams in.
and all is garbage here in the trenches, here in beer, here in rotting wallowing stagnation, such that i cannot see any of you, i cannot see your skeletons, i cannot see your faces.
your eyes are dots on a flesh canvas and i have never seen you look, i have never heard you laugh.
we are meant to dust the cabinets and go quiet.
so much is gone and nothing remains.

 
 
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BROKE US UP

 
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! IT’S JUST GOING TO BE THE SAME THING
ALL OVER AGAIN WITH YOU!”
she hung up.
and ran off to her forty-five year old
black basketball-playing
backup boyfriend.
she was upset that i wanted to go to India
in December,
and that she couldn’t go.
she had visa problems,
and wouldn’t be able to
get back into the country
if she left.
“IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME, YOU’D WAIT FOR ME!”
she had shrieked on the phone.
“this is the federal government we’re
dealing with, baby,
forget five or ten years,
you may never get that green card.”
somehow the worst sin
i could commit
was going on a week-long trip
without her.
no words of
reason or
consolation
helped in the slightest.

the fact of the matter was,
there was too much
water
under the bridge,
i had fucked up
too many times before.
but the feds
had at least
something
to do with it.

 
 
SAUSAGE FOR BREAKFAST

 
i was drunk at eleven in the morning
in my apartment in Los Angeles.
i had decided to cook up
some hash browns
on the stove
(which was unusual,
i almost
never did that).
i had put the frying pan
on the burner
about thirty seconds earlier
and sprayed some
pam into it.
i was standing there,
butt naked,
fiddling with
the cardboard package
of hash browns,
my head buzzing
from about six beers.

i looked down
at my dick.

there it dangled,
like a little sausage.

i flopped it up
on the skillet.
it rested there
on the rim.
but the pan had
evidently heated up
quicker than
i had expected.
i heard a slight
sizzling noise,
and then
felt the most
excruciating
pain
of my
entire life.

a searing,
eye-bursting agony
shot up from
my loins,
FIRE AND DEATH AND APOCALYPSE,
the world
was ending.

i collapsed onto
the floor,
melting
into a fetal position,
unable to emit
even an
‘oh god’
or a
‘jesus christ’,
the only thing
that existed
was the
Forest Fire on my Dick.
hopefully death
would come
swiftly.

i lay there
on the kitchen floor
for some time,
unable to move.
finally i was able to
slither down
the hall and
into bed.
still in extreme discomfort,
i hazarded a glance
down at my
nether regions.
there was blood and
some pus
down there,
it did not
look too pretty.

when i finally came
to my senses
a few hours later,
i thought about things
for a minute or so,
and then asked myself,
‘what kind of a jackass
fries his dick on a frying pan?’

 
 
FOR THE NEW POOR

 
i have been in pool halls
on friday nights
where women mad as march hares
stagger up to you and mumble
incoherently,
unannounced and
uninvited.
they were once
considered attractive,
but it is slipping away
now,
and along with
their looks
go their minds.

the makeup is
still there
but the eyes
are demented,
wild with prolonged
fear,
their movements
are slow and unnatural,
they plow forward
with unpracticed
animal persistence,
words slurred by
vodka or rum
mixed with
a newly arrived
confusion.

along with the looks
go security,
peace of mind,
contentment by the fire,
sex,
companionship
and everything else.
and they cannot
cope with it,
these madwomen,
their castles
crumble
around them
in a new
topsy-turvy world
that was once
only the domain
of elephant men.

 
 
CODA

 
i have been done much harm,
and much harm
have i done to others.
and here in this hour
of reckoning,
i weep without tears.

the daughters of my dreams,
first cast away,
have now fled,
and i who should be dead
remain behind
for none to see.

i am nothing
but a lightning rod
for pain,
meant either to store it
within myself
or to tremble
within its arc
as it leaps away again
to find a
new host.

i am the lonely man,
i am the only man,
small talk should swirl
and smiles should dance
only
they do not.

i am lost.