YUPSTERS – Scott Taylor
April 2, 2026
walked around town today
and it was more of the same,
duck into the fancy bar,
the icy stare you’re not welcome here,
turned shoulders, noses in the air,
beers chugged as fast as possible
and why the hell do i go in in the first place,
i really must be crazy.
trudging thru pleasant sunny afternoons
connecting bad dots.
but then down fayetteville
and there is commotion on the street,
pavilions being set up,
something going on
outside the news station.
a kid on a scooter comes up,
“what’s going on here?”
he’s just curious and wants to know.
it’s a normal question and a normal conversation
and it feels so out of place
in this decidedly abnormal city.
i’m almost dazed afterwards,
asking myself if it even really happened.
their yuppie utopia
is a mind beater
and a soul crusher
and i want them to object
to me.
IMAGINE THAT
i was out in the boondocks,
living on the outskirts of the civilized world,
and then a step beyond that.
there were two or three bars to drink at,
a roadhouse biker place,
another rowdy local watering hole
and a strip club tucked away out by the highway.
sitting at the strip club one evening,
off hours, almost no one in there.
i’d been trying to find a place in town
to feel comfortable
and this was about as good as it got.
at least it was dark in there.
i was hoping to befriend someone,
maybe something developing
over the course of time
but it wasn’t to be,
all they ever saw
was just another loser on a barstool.
a girl comes in
and sits down next to me.
i had seen her before at the other bar
doing an open mic,
she was howling and trying to play guitar
and scaring everyone out of the place.
pretty weird stuff.
most likely a lesbian,
chopped hair,
gangly,
on the tomboy side.
a lost soul.
we start chatting
and she’s kind of in her own world,
not quite right,
and the conversation abruptly turns to religion.
she has a ‘JESUS’ tattoo on one of her arms
in big capital letters.
she asks me what i think of religion
and i tell her not much
(in respectful terms).
we banter back and forth
from the two opposing sides,
she’s something of a missionary.
eventually i wind up saying
“well i mean the possibility exists that god just isn’t there,
can you imagine that?”
(not quite patronizing her, at least not on purpose).
she comes to a dead stop,
staring at me with vacant eyes.
suddenly she bursts into tears,
crying softly to herself.
i try to console her, gently,
but she’s beside herself.
“do you think that could be true?”
she whispers meekly, like a child.
i don’t pursue it further,
deflect, try to steer things elsewhere.
i doubt the thought
had ever really crossed her mind.
we live in a world
where phantoms and ghosts
possess more form
than flesh and blood.
spirits dance in their heads
and spill forth
seeping into the soil
like blood watering lilies.
I LEFT MY HEART IN…
frisco is a hot mess
and you wander all over the damn thing,
up and down big hills
and across windy piers,
all day long and then
back through all the junkies and wackos
lurking in the tenderloin.
at the familiar dive bar
the night before,
you’d gotten drunk
with bobby from boston
and watched the asian bartendresses
all night.
a few hours earlier,
down the street thru the cold
and the dark,
the hot blonde had pulled the homeless dude
into the bar for a drink,
he’d lasted about two minutes
before throwing an epic screaming fit
and promptly being tossed back out
into the street
like so much refuse.
back out and up the block
and around the corner,
black chick on the wall hissin’
“what dis white bread muthfucka doin’ here?”
and homie up in my face goin’
“gimme money fo’ a samwich samwich samwich!”
duck into the punk bar
and out of the line of fire.
saturday night, 11:30,
outta gas and spent.
sit down at the bar
away from the crowd a bit,
young kids out partyin’,
they don’t want me in there
and i don’t really want to be there either.
fuckit, gimme a beer.
outta nowhere there’s this chick’s voice
in my left ear,
she’s cooing something but it’s too loud to hear,
buzzing sensations and then
she’s actually sucking on my ear while she’s
talking to me.
i turn to her real slow,
half drunk half surprised,
expecting the inevitable
but she’s a good looking girl,
real good looking,
white chick with long brown hair
and beautiful doe eyes.
i’m waiting for the punch line
but it’s not coming,
she just keeps going.
she tries to get me up outta the chair,
she’s pulling on the back of it
and shaking it
but i’m still half in shock,
after the afternoon in the war zone
i’m still expecting to be shot at any moment
or something.
seeing as how i’m not to be moved,
she returns to my ear and is cooing again
and now i can make out a few words,
“whenever you want, whenever you want…”
she gets tired of waiting after about five minutes
and i watch her saunter out the door
shortly thereafter,
sidling out
with a couple of friends.
it either would have been
the best night of my life
or i’d be dead
right now.
MORTAL THROES
i don’t know if you can die
from a broken soul,
but i think
you can.
endless days and nights
of defeat,
death by a thousand cuts.
hatred and ugliness
at every turn,
all-consuming,
cascading vicissitudes.
the body falters,
systems fail.
worn out,
worn down.
gradually
you come to realize
that nothing really matters
to you
anymore.
the spirit
surrenders
before the mind
or the body.
the mountains
and the islands
and the woods
weren’t enough
in the end,
there was no escape.
now it’s harder and harder
to go out through that door.
some day,
and maybe soon,
i may not be able to do it
at all.
the lamentable verdict,
sediment settled,
aged wisdom
in a monolith world.
dreams
in ash.
STREET URCHIN UNHINGED
went out for a little night on the town recently,
which is becoming increasingly more rare these days
as i edge closer to eternity.
trying to find the hockey game,
first one bar and then another,
nothing doing
so over to isaac’s to see what was going on,
and lo and behold
they have it on every TV (also rare).
it was a good bar most of the time,
but the sheraton was right next door
and so they got their fair share of corporate types and yuppified morons
and tonite they were in full swing with it.
pretty big crowd for a thursday,
all riled up in the social frenzy,
way more than i wanted –
i went to the far end of the bar
and got myself a beer.
a kid sat down next to me,
he was well-built
and had fancy hair and an earring
and tattoos all over the place.
at first he sat there quietly,
but i said ‘hey’ as i was ordering my next beer
and then suddenly he wanted to talk.
‘i need a beer, i need a beer to function,’ he said,
anxiously waving at the bartender.
right away he told me
he had just gotten out of prison.
he was from johnston county (where i had lived for awhile),
but wouldn’t tell me exactly where for some reason –
in fact he was insulted
when i inquired further.
‘i’m the best drummer in north carolina,’ he proclaimed,
and grabbed the phone out of my hand
to show me pictures on a website.
‘i was in a band but i ditched them for a chick.’
he was staring at me intensely the whole time,
i could tell he wasn’t quite right.
he was feverish,
his movements were jerky
and i wondered if he were on something.
suddenly he leaned into me,
pulled up his sleeve
and showed me the hells angels tattoo
he had on his arm.
‘are you in the hells angels?’
i asked him.
his face screwed up darkly
and he glared at me.
‘don’t talk about that’, he said.
everything i said seemed to offend him.
he leaned back, flexing his arms
and for a moment i thought he was going to hit me.
‘i’m the toughest motherfucker in here,’ he said.
i decided to just sit for awhile and drink my beer.
next he got up to go to the bathroom
and didn’t come back for awhile.
i risked a glance over my shoulder
and saw him wandering around the room.
suddenly he shouted
‘who called me a motherfucker?’
everyone looked up from their drinks.
‘did you see anyone do anything?’ he asked a girl at a table.
she said no.
he asked a few other people,
no one had seen anything.
he went back to his stool.
‘none of them wanted any,’ he told me.
‘i’m the toughest motherfucker in here.’
over and over he kept showing me his tattoos.
if i asked him any questions though,
he told me ‘don’t talk about it’ and got angry.
he was a full-fledged nut.
then he said he had no place to stay
and needed money for the bus.
i said i’d buy him a round instead.
the bartender came over
and put a beer down in front of him.
within seconds
he had managed to knock it clear down the bar.
i poured half of mine in his glass
and this time it stayed there,
he chugged it down greedily.
now he was getting drunk
and he kept asking me where i was going next.
i told him i was going home.
he asked if he could sleep on my couch,
i told him my girlfriend wouldn’t approve.
he was getting animated
and he started to grab at my arm and hit me.
i objected and pulled away.
he was confused, he said ‘no i like you man, i like what you’re saying.’
times like these often made me wonder
why i bothered coming into these places anymore,
and it occurred to me
that i was getting too old for this shit.
finally after a whole lot more of this,
i got up to go to the bathroom
and when i came back, he was gone.
i sat there with my beer
while the dust settled around me,
while the world re-calibrated.
shit, i just wanted to watch the hurricanes game.