#1 New Release in Poetry Anthology: Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women

Congrats to Gabriela Marie Milton and Ingrid Wilson!

My Poem, One Strong Megan, is published in the anthology. The poem is written about Megan’s ectopic near-death experience. Here’s a snippet!

One Strong Megan

I almost lost Megan.
Last Tuesday Megan stayed home from work.
Just before noon I heard my name called from upstairs.
Followed by the sound of Megan landing on the bathroom floor.
I was downstairs feeding Gavin his lunch.

Megan’s head was in between the toilet and the shower.
She was just opening her eyes.
Her breathing was highly elevated. She was perspiring heavily.
I started asking basic questions. She wasn’t able to focus her eyes.
From my point of view, Megan did not know who I was.

I flat lined emotionally. Everything slowed down.
I had my cell phone in my hand while asking Megan,
“Would you like an ambulance?”
I was calling regardless of her answer. She was pregnant.
We found out the previous Friday night that the pregnancy was ectopic.
Monday morning she had a follow up with her doctor to confirm
what the emergency room told her Friday night.
Her doctor gave her two shots of metho, told her she might feel cramping,
but that she’d be able to go to work on Tuesday.

There I squatted, on Tuesday, brushing the hair from Megan’s face.
“Yes, she’s starting to come to. Yes, she knows who she is.
No, her color seems alright. (I am color blind.)
Honey, they are telling me to tell you that help is on the way.
Ma’am, I need to run downstairs and get my son out of his high chair. He’ll tip it over.
Yes, I’ll be fast and I’ll come back up to be with Megan.”

Thank God Megan is strong.

The doctor was wrong. The worst possible situation was happening.
Megan had suffered a rupture and was bleeding internally.

***************************

To read the entire 975 word poem, please purchase the anthology here:

Oh, Gavin. This mind of yours.

Am I the only one to find creativity in this? I am the father. I wish to not be blind of that fact. However, I can’t unsee the stance, the distance, the background. The use of ‘people’ which are decorations for a home, just not in this instance. In this instance, a soon-to-be four-year-old positioned his people exactly so.

 

I had no choice but to take this photo and share with all of you.

Thoughts?

Matt

photo taken 8/12/19

 

Poem

A face, like a barn door,
asked me to be like a nothing.
I was. Much like the old woman
shaking, and alone, just outside
the frosted window.

-M. Taggart

A dirt road, A pub, and Family

I splashed water from the bathroom sink onto my face and looked at my dripping curiosity. This is my third year as a father. Downstairs our son, Gavin, is running the pitter-patter pattern while yelling, ‘Oh No! The Dino’s a comin!’

Today we’ll drive to the White Mountains. We like old dirt roads that wind through the country side and give glimpses of lakes and mountain tops. We like to drive slowly, open the windows, and look for dinosaurs. These old roads are seldom traveled and when you’re on them they feel like they’re yours. Trees tower on both sides and the forest is so deep that it seems like there couldn’t possibly be an end to them; with that feeling comes thoughts that anything is possible, even finding a dinosaur.

We’ll most likely take my truck, where Gavin rides in the middle of the back seat. He sits up high because of his car seat and looks like a child-king. I’m fine with that. He’s the one child we have and we waited a long while to be gifted his presence. I laugh at people who try and determine our parenting style. All they need to do is ask. I’ll tell them, ‘Fucking awesome and nearly perfect.’ With a straight face. Hoping they piss me off.

After driving through the mountains we’ll eventually make our way into a small town and stop at a pub. I’ll order some kind of dark foaming beer, hopefully the foam will spill over the top of the glass and spill down the sides. We’ll order Gavin french fries with vinegar (he loves that stuff) and chicken nuggets and Megan will order anything her heart desires for the rest of her life.

I’ll scan the pub for people of passion. Let there be a few. Silent is the day when eyes cast shadows, drooping and lowering into their drink without thought. That is not the society to be. Have your pints, raise your whiskey, cheers the one next to you and talk about what moves you. Talk about why your day fetched its morning to deliver your afternoon. Hell, talk politics! Do it! Oh, I have…and will continue to. I find airing out differences over a pint of beer at a pub to be aggressively healthy; because how the hell do you find health with laziness? I think we’ve been lied to. Over and over. I see the lies floating out of mouths, especially the talking heads on TV, somehow those same lies find new housing and eventually find their way to me in person, and I put them where they belong, under my boot.

But don’t mind me. I was born with a bit too much energy. A bit too much passion. We’ll see what today brings. If it isn’t much, I’ll make it into something much more.

Matt

Cheers and Happy Father’s day to you all. Even the Mammas because, well without you…

 

My cell does OK. White Mountains. 

Thought Drop –

Today, she’ll walk away for the last time.

-M. Taggart

 

It’s simple. You either want in. Or, you want out. If you want in, drop the games, and be all in. Everything else is like building a story out of adjectives. And you’re the one building.

Odd Walking Thoughts – Menacing Rock

We sit, clashing smiles, seeing each other, hoping for blood. Again. It’s not enough to read our history. Word of mouth is a joke we understand, it’ll only play out nicely when we kill one another. Don’t you agree. The boy was confused by the rock. It was a menacing rock. He’d been deep in the woods and fallen asleep next to it. ‘Why do you speak to me, rock.’ the rock did not reply.

M. Taggart

Copyright 2017

An Ocean View

An Ocean View

Fiction: -M. Taggart

Oh- the day was nice. Nicer than most. And we kept driving and looking at the ocean as it appeared and disappears as it does. We were driving on Route One in Rhode Island. When the ocean was in view it was hard to breathe. The sun sparkled so violently it took your attention.

Things would have been alright if the man hadn’t shouldered dad. Dad was fine until he wasn’t. And when he wasn’t, things were fine for no one.

Dad had been in line, holding Mom’s hand. I saw it all happen. The man looked at mom. The way men look at women. Dad pretended to not see. But he did. Dad was looking up and away from the man. The man set his eyes level with Mom’s and smirked, thinking something. Then he shouldered dad. Clear as day.

Dad turned nicely to mom. His eyes knew so much. Mom gave the nod.

I tried watching, but mom held my head tucked in her arms. She even took hold of my nose. I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t breathe through my nose.

It didn’t take long. We were back in the car and the ocean was again winking at us and it seemed nothing had happened at all.

**

Thank you for reading. If you’d like to read more of my writing, please consider my self published short story found via the link below.

-M. Taggart

The Way It Is – A Short Story

‘The Way It Is’ was the first short story I published on WordPress. Fiction:  The story is much about the confusion that comes along with any relationship. It’s one of my favorites. Read on. It’s good for the brain.

https://mtaggartwriter.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/the-way-it-is-a-short-story-cheers/

Cheers!

A Poem

A Man sits to think
It’s not always allowed-
But when he does it’s sincere-

Get A Seeing – Eyed Dog. Hemingway

‘He heard the door open and close and her feet on the stairs and he thought, I must get her to go on a trip. I must figure out some way to do it. I have to think up something practical. I’ve got this now for the rest of my life and I must figure out ways not to destroy her life and ruin her with it. She has been so good and she was not built to be good. I mean this sort of good. I mean good every day and dull good.’

**

‘Then why do we have to talk about me going away? I know I’m not good at looking after you but I can do things other people can’t do and we do love each other. You love me and you know it and we know things nobody else knows.’

-Ernest Hemingway. ‘Get A Seeing – Eyed Dog.’

I find these pieces powerful. There’s a third just as nicely done if you’d like to find the story. Hemingway’s writing opens thought patterns for me when I read his work. This happens nearly instantaneously. For me he is the single most influential writer I have ever read.

If you notice, Hemingway has hidden a portion of humanity in a secret for only the two speaking to one another. Of course the secret is also open to the reader. If the reader is reading to comprehend.

 

Lately I haven’t had time to write in depth pieces to share on here. My priorities are family, work and writing for submission. I steal moments here and there to write short poems or Odd Walking Thoughts to publish on WP. I enjoy doing so. Sometimes I’ll sit Gavin on my lap and he’ll try to slam the keyboard with his tiny hands while I write a three line poem. Gavin sees me typing. He wants to type also. Since he’s only five months old his typing is more like smashing. He’s clever at shutting programs down.

I hope you find writing that moves you. Writing that burrows into you and changes you instantly for the rest of your life.

Cheers,

-Matt