William Taylor Jr.

Down at Turk and Taylor

You can still go to the Tenderloin 
on a Saturday night and lose yourself

in the noise and the terror 
of the dirty shining streets

the life and the death 

swirling about in the lights 
and the rain

you can evaporate into the cries 
and the laughter of the broken 
and the lost

buy a poet’s heart
down at Turk & Taylor
no more damaged than the next  

stop for a drink  
in some little place

hip hop on the jukebox
pretty girls playing pool 

try and get a few lines down
before they’re gone 

try and give a voice to this

to glean some kind of truth
from the lonely men at the bar

imagining the right word 
the right line 
will open a window 
into something necessary

and trick another moment from the world 
that has already forgotten your name.