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Spiel Home Page
www.thepoetspiel.name
The Poet
Spiel
aka The Artist Tom Taylor
aka The Artist Thoss W. Taylor _______________________________________________________________
Poetry, art and information about this writer/artist
is distributed throughout 5 pages of this site.
The artist’s solo exhibition history is at the bottom of this page.
To access each of these 5 pages, go to extreme top of this page,
then click page name.
___________________________________________________________________Spiel writes with great range and passion. So much so that it is easy to hear and remember only his loudest shouts -- those poems in which he pounds the door and cries out for the injustice, the inequality and sorrow of this life. But flip these poems over and find a poet equally equipped to write soft, spare, musical poems filled with sentiment and yearning."
Excerpt from, "An Interview With The Poet Spiel" by Charles P. Ries, 2007
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these are perilous times—
—when you don’t know if
you should teach your little ones
to sleep standing with their backs
to the wall and their running shoes on
or if you should benevolently slip
quietly into their bedrooms and place
a pillow over their tiny faces then press it
downward til the frantic kicking ceases
© 2007 The Poet Spiel

Spiel Photo © 2008 by P. Welch
The Poet Spiel has identified himself as a maverick from birth, brought into this world by common white folk on a small farm Out West, the same year the U.S. entered the bleak years of WWII.
In 1996, a major confrontation with what was promised to be his imminent death, changed the course of his life. He abruptly abandoned a lifelong successful career as a visual artist, became withdrawn and reticent and, for the first time ever, uncreative. Then in 2000, an urge to write arose. Since then, as The Poet Spiel, scores of independent press editors have internationally published, his often raw poetry and his quirky, insightful short stories. He is credited with the publication of more than one dozen chapbook and book collections of poetry and prose.
Since 1964, presenting himself under various personas and with diverse types of art, he has been recognized with more than four dozen solo exhibitions, coast to coast, in venerable museums, galleries and universities (see bio at bottom of this page). His art also, has been published worldwide in a broad array of formats.
Spiel is known for his work with personal conflict and socially aware, often iconoclastic, subjects and in being unusually comfortable with taking us on journeys into the discomforts of deep secrets many may share but find too personal or too dark to reveal. He is masterful at risking an uncertain world where, harboring the visceral paranoia that accompanies surveillance at our every turn, we wish everything would turn out okay but we are too often disappointed to find that it does not.
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Please note: permission to use
Spiel/Taylor work in any form must first
be obtained by specific request,
per item, per usage, at:
spielspeak@earthlink.net
"the big quiet" spiel, © 2008
24” x 48” acrylic/ gouache/ buttons on masonite
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Many sizes of Spiel's Giclee prints, on fine art paper or canvas, starting as low as $43, are available online. Go to the Saatchi Online website, then search The Poet Spiel.
making pictures without mouths
unloading griefs i did not know
in pictures without mouths
in pictures rows of pictures
stacks and stacks of pictures
of the children
without faces
without mouths
to speak
to tell of all their needs
to tell their stories
where they’d been
why they stood before the houses
without doors
without windows
stood before those houses
could not speak
those children without mouths
in pictures that i made
unloading griefs
that at that time i could not know
and at that time i changed my name
to hide my blackened tongue
so blackened then
by griefs of secrets hidden there
behind my face
without a place to speak
and hushed by circumstance
beyond my naïve understanding
sullen and in grieving
making pictures
rows and stacks of pictures
without mouths
© 2003 The Poet Spiel This poem first appeared in Spiel's chapbook, it breathes on it own, published by Pudding House Publications. “making pictures” is performed by Spiel on his C.D., breathing back words. Both products are available on the “Spiel Books” page of this site.
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“short story with hoes” Spiel, © 2010
30” x 40” acrylic / mixed media on masonite
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“The Poet Spiel’s fecund imagination shapes rich clear imagery. He editorializes on our society’s misfortunes including hollow social promises, mismanaged religions and political aspirations that, when appropriated for ill, are changed into painful slogans festering in society’s gums like an impacted tooth.” Dr. William Folkestad. Colorado State University, Pueblo
Be certain to Explore the multi-faceted
SPIEL SHOWCASE / click here
http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/comeherecowboy.html
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Spiel's writing can be found in small and independent press publications in The U.S.A, Canada, Indonesia, Nepal, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Britain, both on and offline, such as:
Abbey, Alpha Beat Press, art mag, Ascent Aspirations, Barbaric Yawp, Barking Dogs, Bathtub Gin,Big Intersection, Blind Man's Rainbow, Bogg, Buckle &, Broomweed Journal, Chiron Review, Cliff's Soundings, Covert Poetics, Cranial Tempest, Dana Literary Society, Dog Ear, Drama Garden, Fight These Bastards, Finding Our Voices, First Class, Free Verse, frisson:disconcerting verse, Gestalten, Gin Bender Poetry Review, Gloom Cupboard, Happy, Iconoclast, Impetus, Iodine, Jaw Magazine, laurahird.com, League of American Poets, League of Laboring Poets, Lilliput Review, little episodes, Lost & Found, Lucid Moon, LuVER Radio, Lynx Eye, Mainstreet Rag, March Street Press, Marymark Press, Muses Review, Neotrope, Nerve Cowboy, New Verse News, nicestories, No Exit, Open Cut, Opium 2.0, Pass Port Journal, Parting Gifts, Pearl, Penhimalaya, Plain Jane, Poems-For-All, Poesy, poetalk, Poetry Motel, Poets Against the War, Pudding House Publications, Pueblo Poetry Project, Pueblo Chieftain, P.U.L.P., Quill & Parchment, Ragged Edge, Rejected Notice, Remark, RFD, Skidrow Penthouse, Slipstream, Small Press Review, Snapdragon, Storyteller, strangeroad, St Vitus Press, Sugar Mule, The MAG, Thunder Sandwich, TouchStone, Transcendent Visions, Unlikely Stories, Velvet Box, West Wind Review, Winning Writers, Word Riot, Zafusy, Zen Baby, Zygote in My Coffee, ZYX
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breaking rules
breaking rules robs energy
i do not have the will to spare
i make my own instead do so
not to appease your familiarity
but cast in light
to disrupt the core
of discomforts
we may share
for what we share in common
in our darkness
the burdens of our closets
is where we lift our care
© 2005 the poet spiel
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forgotten heroes ©2010 Spiel
30” x 40” acrylic on masonite
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"...(Spiel) challenges the current tendency of small press poets to do little else but reaffirm the pedestrian nature of life. Spiel refuses to produce small, tasty commodities that gloss, harmonize, and freeze frame. Rather than impose epiphany onto image, Spiel moves from image to social analysis. Therefore, 'Spiel Speak' is an audacious language of struggle, a language of talkback which invades, ignites, and possibly even transforms the reader."
"chronic expulsion" 24"x36" acrylic with nuts, bolts, mirror, fish line & hook on masonite © 2009 Spiel
looking at the floor—
late eyes,
looking up only after you believe no one can see you;
your troubled throat, out of note, like a leather violin,
not dormant, but forever muffled.
the lure of little voices, lingering within you,
wishing to inform you that without your cleavage
you would still be the child whose mouth
he shoved onto a doorknob
as he promised not to hurt you from behind,
not to tell on you, not to let your mama tell of what she’d seen
about your brothers taking turns on you.
little voices, lure-a-lure, black and blue a loo-a-lure,
insisting that you know you are maria, the woman now,
the lure of voices, all their tiny voices telling:
show your cleavage, show the world your breasts.
buy the distance you desire with their allure.
your little girls are safe now;
rose and angel, he cannot hurt them now.
stella, grace, and darling, your brothers cannot hurt them now.
gloria, pearl, florence, and the others you became:
each a blameless fanny, a variant voice, a tiny muffled voice,
a lure allure.
jesus was not there for florence;
could not hear her undeveloped voice
when she cried its lure-a-lure.
mary rests beneath the tulips where you buried her,
and stella in the marigolds before your mama cut them down.
it was darling whom your papa forced
to say that it was good
before he would withdraw,
just before you claimed your body back once more,
then told your teacher you’d fallen down a mountainside
and that was why your arm was broke.
a-lure a-lure all black and blue a-loo a-lure.
you sent gloria to your sky when they finished her.
their football team had won; she was their prize.
you still see her in your sky. still hear her from your sky.
you might use her voice when yours deserts you;
when you forget the tortured leather violin that is your throat
might resonate again,
if you need to choose to use the voice of any child that you
became
to get away from carlos then,
to rise up to the ceiling, like when you swallowed all your teeth
as modesto and your papa, devout catholics,
and the cadre of your cousins, pissproud abeytas and vallejos,
had their way with you.
ohh those little voices lingering.
ohh how they tease you now,
lure a lure:
you need not look down at the floor.
you are maria, woman, now.
show your cleavage.
it is your ticket to a man who will gift you with a child
for whom a doorknob opens doors.
the child will be you as you wished to be;
will adore you.
the man will love you,
lure-a-lure, allure. show your breasts now,
lure ah-lure
This heart-heavy poem is performed by Spiel on his C.D., breathing back words, in a breath-taking collaboration with composer Jack Moss. The hour-long disc is available on the “Spiel Books” page.
chair
i wish you were a chair there
a soft open chair
i wish you were hair there
as bright as ripe wheat where
i wish you were air there
at dawn its freshness of sky there
in my mirror there
me watching me there
resting on you as chair
combing through you as hair
inhaling you as air
i wish you were a chair
me reclined on you there
in my mirror where
i finger you as hair
oh i wish you were air here
and i were a chair
© 2005 The Poet Spiel
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the end
i don't think
anyone cried
on the first day
but
there was loud silence
around
the kitchen table
dad phoned
the wheat threshers
told them
there would not be
no filthy sweat work
one out-of-hell
sweep of hail
had wasted his readied crop
one day too soon
no one wanted to talk
so i hid my mouth upstairs
just played and played my harry belafonte
til it numbed me dead
when i came to
my dumbed diamond needle
was banging
deep grooves in my head
my folks were still
in the kitchen
staring
at dark
the dogs were scratching
our screendoor
and i wasn't sure if
the cows had been milked
my dad had to quit
a lifetime
dedicated
to farming
and we had to move
where our only harvest
was just a dumb little patch
of green grass where i rooted
a pussy willow cutting
hoping it might grow fast
to hide
the naked bathroom window
of a little white house
crammed between
everybody-strangers
who did not drive trucks
who made their lights
push through
my bedroom walls
after bedtime
and me just listening
to the slick-black street
where a kid could not
kick dirt
© 2008 The Poet Spiel
From "once upon a farmboy," a Spiel chapbook published by MadmanInk, 2008.
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who gives me life so also takes my life
acrylic on board © 1985 Tom Taylor aka The Poet Spiel
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epitaph
cast my ashes on
agitated water
where my enemy
cannot surround them
where my best friend
cannot long to wake them
© 2005 The Poet Spiel
Spiel wrote his classic "epitaph" ten years after a team of specialists had (incorrectly) assured him his "time had come and he should get his affairs in order to prepare to die."
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"Tom Taylor is like a human prism. The facets of his art mark achievements many artists fear as well as envy." Jennifer Heath, Rocky Mountain News 1990

"agenda” Spiel © 2010
40” x 30” acrylic on masonite
Museum, University, Gallery, and Private Solo Exhibitions
In alphabetical order.
Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, Aspen, CO. 1981
Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, Aspen, CO. 1989
Born Free Gallery, Evergreen, CO. 1995
Bradford Junior College, Bradford, MA. 1971 *
Brand Library Art Center, Glendale, CA. 1971 *
The Breckenridge Gallery, Breckenridge, CO. 1995
California Institute of the Arts, Burbank, CA. 1971*
Center for Idea Art, Denver, CO. 1983 *
Charles Cowles, New York City, NY. 1971 *
The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC. 1973 *
CORE New Art Space, Denver, CO. 1995
Dyer’s, Longmont, CO. 1995
Edge Gallery, Denver, CO. 1989
Edge Gallery, Denver, CO. 1990
The Eugenia Butler Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 1971 *
First National Bank, Loveland, CO.1981
The Flanders Show, Longmont, CO. 1980
Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD. 1965
Gallery East, Loveland, CO. 1981
The Gallery at Hudson’s Bay, Denver, CO. 1985
The Gallery at Hudson’s Bay, Denver, CO. 1984
Gallery at The Loft, Pueblo, CO. 2010
The Gondolier, Boulder, CO. (First solo exhibit) 1964
The Gondolier, Boulder, CO. 1964
Harris Fireside Lounge, Longmont, CO. 1964
Hunter College, New York City, NY. 1971 *
Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, CA. 1971 *
The Landmark Gallery, Longmont, CO. 1981*
The Landmark Gallery, Longmont, CO. 1982
The Longmont Museum, Longmont, CO. (A retrospective) 1989
The Moote Home Show, Ft. Collins, CO. 1980
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, CA. 1971 *
NFSC Show, Wheat Ridge, CO. 1995
Nova Scotia College of Art, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1971 *
Pioneer Museum, Longmont, CO. 1971 *
Pirate – A Contemporary Art Oasis, Denver, CO. 1988 *
Pirate – A Contemporary Art Oasis, Denver, CO. 1987
Prince George’s College, Washington, DC. 1965
PST / Perpetual Conceptual, Los Angeles, CA. 2012 *
Reese-Palley Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 1971 *
The Rex Evans Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 1970
The Rex Evans Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1969
Royce Galleries Ltd., Denver, CO. 1996
Royce Galleries Ltd., Denver, CO. 1992
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 1971 *
The San Juan Gallery, Pueblo CO. ( A retrospective) 2011
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA. 1971 *
Sotheby Park-Bernet/ Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, TX. 1971 *
Two Squares Gallery, Denver, CO. 1965
University of California, Davis, CA. 1971 *
University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA. 1971*
University of Colorado Memorial Fine Arts Center, Boulder, CO. 1964
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO. (A retrospective) 1983 *
The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT. 1971 *
Wildlife Conservation Society of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. 1980
Wildlife World Museum, Monument, CO. 1982
* Indicates venues where "Considerations of the Confines of Thoss W. Taylor" ("Consider Your Confines") is known to have been exhibited. Visit the website dedicated to The Confine show: thosstaylor-theconfineshow.info