***

the word ceiling does not mean that you have a sky

the word sky does not mean that nothing will fall on your head

scared to live with worms underground

it’s even scarier to live with worms above the ground

scared to be a worm

(the worm can be cut into pieces and he will not die)

(the worm moves strangely and has no legs)

scared to be

scared to scream

scared to be silent

scared to stream

it’s scary to be a man but to live without limbs like you’re a worm

as a child, I always tore off the arms and legs of toys

I tore off the arms and legs of toy soldiers

  (like in real life)

god why can’t you see

why does everyone around say that you do not exist

why does everyone around say that I’m not there

why am I lying somewhere in the cemetery and it’s dark around

***

Ashtrays of the Lord God after a night thunderstorm

Who will not return home after being struck by lightning?

Little girl looks out the window with hope

Her mother looks out the window with promised melancholy

***

firefighters die in a spring thunderstorm

fluffs of moisture swirl insatiably 

in the sultry air

***

in a spring fire 

trees were burned paper packaging thoughts plastic hands skin tears fears

and then the fire was extinguished with urine

the sky above the color of the bones of an angel

***

I have never seen birds

my old grandfather doesn’t recognize me

I rub my eyes 

and it’s dark around

physical diseases transmitted genetically are the most terrible

***

when my cat died i laughed

mouse corpses floated in the air

a sad mother came up and asked why I had fun and I bit her hand

then mom got offended and left the hospital

then the orderly came and again injected me with a sedative

the cleaning lady went to the bed and removed the toy (cat) torn to pieces

the remaining month in the mental hospital was not marked by anything special

***

Gas mask from the magi

Cocaine from cain

Cider from eva

Gospel of babylonians

And every morning someone born under the star of 

Jesus gets ready to go on the road

***

a small bird warms a piece of glass with its breath

a shadow from a tree hides behind a feathered back

college life caught in death collage

the bird freezes and the graveyard rain falls from heaven

the graves are crying and trying to say something

the tree is looking for a flower on its branches and does not find

another day has come to an end

***

The gallows of your embrace

Thousands of suns soak up the world around

Thousands of suns explode destroying the suicide world

The city of unwashed ropes and cracks in the chest climbs out

A man near a signboard and it is not clear where to go forward or into the future

***

1

Can’t die without you

Can’t breathe without you

I want to see your naked body

I want to see the bare naked soul

Paratroopers fly overhead like seagulls

But you’ll never see it again

2

A spring flame of hope burns in my chest

I’m still naive and capricious like a child

You are so beautiful and capable of giving everything in the world

You’re fucking somewhere far away with others and I’m happy for you

Distance is a house of cards for the two of us

And I never knew anything about cards

You’re in the house

I’m in a dungeon

3

The rain divides the city in half

The first half is for my love

The second half is destined for my love’s graveyard

***

the book teaches 

own pages 

to crunch wisely

***

five fingers

a child asked 

his mother 

why other children have five fingers

***

The graveyard of the bed counts the vertebrae

The broken ceiling shades the skies in the pupils

Aluminum birds stonefull knock on the window

The soul leaves the meat cage of physicality forever

***

stonefull 

everything

ness

without face –

outside my body

***

eagle without:

feathers 

beak 

еyes 

wings 

skin 

bones 

body

***

the voice you hear 

is drowning 

in the autumn water

***I didn’t pay for air before nightfall
My house has turned into a monster

Where should I return now?

***

snow is procrastination when your favorite porn actor dies inside you

 WAIT- THE ARCANE HOPE

I’ll be waiting for you,

A thousand lives,

I’ll be waiting for you,

Till I finish counting all the stars.

I’ll be waiting,

Till I cross the blue and reach your horizon. 

I’ve felt the tides splashing in hy heart,

When I saw the ocean in your eyes.

Your absence made me love you as much as I love the moon.

My heart sank deep down in the ocean  of your eyes,

And no, I don’t want to float.

The tides have washed away all the blood and,

 Your name is scribbled in my heart, by the merciless movement of the hard rocks.

Stinky

He’s at National

Getting into 

An Uber

And as soon as

He closes

The door 

He realizes 

That the driver

Smells quite bad

But it’s

Cold outside

And he’s exhausted

And really needs

This ride

So he starts breathing

Through his mouth,

A five-star review

Is nowhere in sight.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.

Bell Angel Evergreen Chime (the fast closing dusk)

There was dusk, and it closed in fast. The creative one glanced out a window at a squirrel grey and remembered things. He was determined to think of interesting and positive, life affirming phenomena and people, to frame the world on the side of goodness. There had been a bell on a door, and also a bell in a church top structure,- the bells were soulful and well made, reminded him of times he didn’t live through, but had seen in old films and maybe old books. Small towns. Well made things mechanically, structurally, maybe many hand made things.

He imagined there was an angel sometimes, just over things, between the tops of bookshelves or Christmas trees and the ceilings. Wouldn’t that be a nice place for an angel, guiding us, concerned about, seeing, whispering softly,- benevolent, ghostly but in a good way?- and the evergreens. They were brave, choice or not, to stand out there in all the seasons. He thought people took them for granted. But they were something wonderful in life. The snowy ground sometimes, and then the green, and the clear blue sky. He had just said to someone recently while walking, ‘Today is not the day, not the ideal day. It’s one of those ones you have to get through is all. It’s one of those days for sure. It’s freezing and windy without many redeeming qualities. It’s when the snow was there, and the wind had subsided and one could just enjoy the calm day.

That is the thing. In the forest. By the evergreens. You know. That is it. Much better.’ And then the idea of the chimes. Leave the chimes. They have soul. Silver on black strings. They don’t sound a lot but sometimes. Other people, a gratitude for them. The beloved with the dimples, brown eyes, wisps of hair falling down. The blonde, good hearted and outgoing. The artist, having knowledge and kindness, interested in the paranormal and always giving keen insights into things she was. And the woman whose eyes were all colours, all different colours at once,- a true and long friend that one.

One day in the countryside, or one day in the south by the sea, there will also be chimes. By the rural fields alone but not lonesome, at home themselves in the bright noon sun, a small breeze, like an angel, like an angel out from the ceiling area. Or, maybe better yet, chimes in the south, maybe even made of shells from the sea!- making their nice noise, by a place where there are palm fronds verdant and stucco walls painted the lightest of orange colours. By the crests of the sea waves and the electric lights blue green yellow purple orange blue like Christmas lights themselves, flowing light on thick grasses and some fence, on a cement bench with turquoise tiles in the top like the one or ones from long before. Everyone has forgotten. They even laugh. But they are hasty and haughty and full of ambition and pride and ego.

I remember. I  appreciate. The grace of it all. The angels, they know. They don’t laugh. They honour place and person, pastoral atmosphere and seaside sanctity, rural restless wildflowers and ferns feral, and even, maybe especially, the fast confident dusk. The dusk of winter so strange and all.

Unmerry

In 1968 I followed my math Ph.D. thesis advisor Karl Stromberg to Kansas State University from the University of Oregon in Eugene to complete my studies.  Professor Stromberg decided to visit Eugene over Christmas break.  His new wife couldn’t drive and he was legally blind.  He asked me to do the driving.

We followed blizzards for 1,740 miles to Oregon.  The first day the snow was so deep that I lost the road and drove into a snow bank.  We were towed into the nearest town by a road grader, but we could only get one room there.  The couple took one bed and I slept with the wife’s two young children, one of whom wet the bed.  As bad as that was, I would have preferred to stay where I was to getting back on the road, but we went on through the perilous weather.  The other excitement on the trip was losing traction on a street in Baker in Eastern Oregon.  We were fortunate that the car slid down a vacant street hitting nothing, rather than running into pedestrians or a building.  No harm done, just horror.

We got to Eugene and then I took a bus to Portland where my father picked me up from a pay telephone booth (they were common then).  When I checked in with the woman that I had been dating while in Oregon, she was distant and cold.  I got the hint.  There hadn’t been any passion in the relationship and I wasn’t very disappointed, despite a desire to see her again.  My sister who had introduced us suggested she was interested in marriage, which didn’t interest me.

After that there was a low key Christmas with my mid-fifties year old parents.  Of that and the trip back, I remember little.  There was no drama, pain, or joy.

Epilogue – I got my Ph.D at the end of that school year back in Eugene.  I never heard from the girlfriend again.  I got married the next year while teaching at Morehouse College in Atlanta and remain married to the same person who among other things is my live in editor.  Professor Stromberg’s wife left him and he got a mail order wife I am told.  He has died; I don’t know anything about either of those wives – there had been some before those two.

Pay it Forward

One Christmas Eve, many years ago, I sat on the pavement, outside my pharmacy, having gotten my meds and now waiting for the door-to-door transit bus, which ferried disabled folks about town. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but in my old Carhart jacket and tattered jeans, I must have presented something of a spectacle to others who were going in and out of the building. As I sat there idly observing other people, I noticed that many of them averted their eyes in passing. I figuratively shrugged.

At one point, a middle aged woman approached bearing a  twenty dollar bill and implored me to take it. I tried to refuse it, telling her that I was not a begger, but merely waiting for my bus — I was sitting on the pavement because my legs weren’t strong enough to support me for long periods of time. But, she insisted, telling me simply, “Merry Christmas.” Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I reluctantly accepted her gesture of kindness.

Ten minutes later, still awaiting my ride, I spied a pretty young woman with two little children. She approached a well-dressed man emerging from the pharmacy and briefly spoke to him. I saw him shake his head no and continue on his way. She stood there, forlorn, and I struggled to my feet and approached her.

“Can I help you, miss,” I asked her.

Taking in my disheveled appearance, she shook her head and said, “No, I don’t want to trouble you.”

I thought: she  thinks I’m a panhandler too. I smiled as kindly and as unthreateningly at her as I could and merely handed her the twenty. She was stunned. Then she narrowed her eyes at me a little suspiciously for a moment, but finding in my face only kindness, she accepted the bill and hugged my in gratitude. In my mind I imagined the predators who might have tried to coerce her.

“Merry Christmas,” I murmured, but she was already half way across the parking lot with her children, en route to McDonalds.

CHAOS

I believe in chaos like I believe in God.

You can’t touch Chaos and it doesn’t speak a language.

Chaos will not write a message on a marble wall with a finger.

Chaos will not walk on water or part the Nile for those in flight.

Please give us a break, Chaos.

Be a puppy dog with large brown eyes looking for a walk.

I see you when I see the toys all over the floor in the kid room.

I can yell at these racing maniacs but it does no good.

The kids are synchronized and move onto the living room.

“COME BACK HERE!” I yell but Chaos has no ears.

Why aren’t you two in deep space?

A dark hole is going to suck you up!

Chaos is not a great white shark.

Chaos only laughs and screams.

The Chaos is two and I love them,

And no algorithm can control them.