Puppy Love

Shortly before the pandemic, I adopted a puppy.  She could fit in my cupped hands.  She got fur on my camouflage dress, and it didn’t matter. I’ve had dogs before, large ones, when I was a kid in my parents’ house in Queens.  I knew what it was to love a dog.

When I was in the sixth grade, we moved from an apartment to a house.  Because we no longer had a doorman to protect us, we got a Doberman Pinscher a few months later.  My brother, Dorian, was enlisted to pick up the dog from the breeder. He took a long time.  I watched for him out the window with my friend Maya. Finally, Dorian walked in the door and put the new black puppy in my arms.  The dog had giant paws, an oversized belly, short legs, and floppy ears that felt like velvet.  We put him on the floor, and Maya put her hand out for him to sniff, and he sneezed in it.  We fell back laughing.  My sister, Debi, suggested the name Fonzie.

I cradled Fonzie in my arms, wrapped him in a blanket.

Dorian said, “Don’t baby him! He’s a guard dog.”

My mom said, “Don’t let him go upstairs!”

He was supposed to sleep in the little room off the kitchen, but at night I sneaked him up to my bedroom.  I hid him under my covers, and we slept cuddled together, his little head on my pillow, while I breathed the sweet mustiness of his fur.  In the morning, I brought him back to his room before my dad got up to make his Turkish coffee.  

After my day at school, I rushed across Queens Blvd. and down the four blocks on 68^th Drive. I couldn’t wait to see Fonzie and take him to the park. Often Dorian and I took him for long walks in the neighborhood and let him run free in the fenced-in track area of Forest Hills High School. 

Even though I coddled him, Fonzie was a good guard dog.  He didn’t let strangers ask me for directions; he made such a racket that they had to drive away.  At Flushing Meadows, if a man walked towards me on an isolated path, Fonzie growled until he passed. 

By the time I was 18, both my siblings had moved out to apartments nearby.  When I was 20, my dad announced that we were getting another dog.  One day, I came down to the living room and saw a very large mastiff puppy lying by the front door, with his chin on the beige tile.  Upright, he was taller than Fonzie, like a colt with lots of loose skin. His body was the color of a lion, and his face was black.  Debi suggested the name Cujo. 

Cujo grew to be massive, broader than Fonzie.  He weighed more than I did.  When people saw me walking both dogs, they crossed the street. 

But Cujo was a fearful dog with a look of worry on his crinkled forehead.  He was startled when the traffic light on Jewel Avenue clicked from red to green.  He was just as startled when a dry leaf blew by. 

When I was 25 and still living at home, I went to Mexico on vacation. Dorian cared for the dogs while I was away.  When I returned, only Cujo greeted me. I figured Fonzie, who was 13 then, was looking for his tennis ball, which he loved to have in his mouth when someone came home.  “Fonzie!” I called.  My mom was playing cards with a group of friends in the living room. “Where’s Fonzie?” I asked her. She stood up. “Call Dorian,” she said. 

I ran to the kitchen phone that was on the wall.  “Where’s Fonzie?” I said, instead of hello.  After a long pause, Dorian said, “He died,” and started sobbing.  He told me that they were at the high school.  Fonzie had eaten something and came over to Dorian and lay at his feet.  And then he stopped breathing.  Dorian tried to lift him.  He told me how he struggled to get Fonzie into the car while holding onto Cujo and crying all the while.  Now I was crying, too.  I coughed out sobs, twirling the phone cord around my fingers until my chest hurt. 

Cujo and I became inseparable. I was able to give him my undivided attention, which he had always craved. I brushed his teeth, gave him medicine, cleaned his ears, bathed him.  He was gentle and open to anything I suggested.  When my nieces and nephews came over, he stood stock still while they petted him, staring down.

On one glorious spring day a few years later, I brought Cujo to Central Park, and he stepped on a shard of glass near the Bethesda Fountain.  He held up his paw for me to look at.  It was the size of my fist, with soft fur between each digit.  When I found the glass and pulled it out, blood spurted.  I didn’t know what to do.  I ran with him through the park to 68^th Street and Central Park West.  With each step, he left behind a bloodied pawprint. On the street, no cab would take me with such a big animal.  I finally spotted one at a red light and explained that my dog was injured.  The cabbie said he would take us to an animal hospital on York Avenue.  I held Cujo and clasped his paw in my shirt as we sped across town.  He leaned against me, and I kissed his ear, whispering, “It’s okay, Cuji.” He got stitches while I sat in the waiting room for hours.

When he was 10, Cujo needed two surgeries on his hind legs; he could no longer support the weight of his body. I knew he was in pain. By then, Dorian had moved to California.  After many discussions with him and the vet, I decided to put Cujo down. In the waiting room, they called his name.  The aide took his leash and said I could go. But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.  I said I wanted to stay with Cujo till the end.  The aide said I couldn’t.  I got on my knees, hugged Cujo, and wept into his fur.  I looked into his kind eyes, kissed him all over his grey speckled face, and told him what a good boy he was. When they led him away, all I had left in my hands was his leash and collar and no dog.

I thought of Fonzie and Cujo often.  I missed them.  Dorian and I talked about them.  He said he was sorry that he’d tried to contain my love and affection for them.  That they were probably such great dogs because I loved them so much.  That my babying them the way I did was probably the best thing. 

Decades passed.  I got married and had two sons. I told them all about Fonzie and Cujo.  I showed them pictures.  I told them how I used to wrap Fonzie in a blanket and carry him like a baby.  When Aaron and Oliver talked about Fonzie and Cujo, it was as if they had known them.

I never thought I would get another dog.  My husband, Val, was allergic. We discussed getting a dog when our boys were small, but the allergy issue always arose, and we didn’t like the hypoallergenic breeds.

Then one day, out of nowhere, Val texted me a picture of a black lab puppy with the name and number of the breeder.  He said that a work colleague had used this breeder and had forwarded him the picture.  He said that he would love this kind of dog and that she was available.  Black labs are not hypoallergenic, I reminded him: They shed; he would be ill; his eyes would itch.  Val said he didn’t care.  He would medicate himself and get an inhaler. 

“Val, are we really doing this?”

“This is the dog I want,” he said. 

Before he could change his mind, I arranged for the dog to be delivered from Pittsburgh to our house in Pelham. 

That morning, I felt nervous and excited. I was jittery; I dropped things; a receipt I needed flew out the car window. 

Then I was standing with my family on the curb waiting, as a guy with missing teeth pulled up in front of our house on Clay Avenue. In the back of his truck was a tiny puppy with the shiniest black fur, soft floppy ears, and caramel-colored eyes. When he handed the dog to me, I felt like I was going to burst. I couldn’t speak.  By the time Debi came over from Queens that afternoon, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “Maybe I should get a dog,” Debi said. I looked at her, confused; I’d never seen her pet Fonzie or Cujo.  When I asked her why, she said, “Because I want to be as happy as you are right now.”

I named the puppy Rhoda in honor of Valerie Harper, who had died that week. Harper had played Mary Tyler Moore’s Jewish friend Rhoda on a sitcom.  Debi loved the show, and I watched whatever my big sister watched.

Aaron and Oliver babied Rhoda, like I did. I carried her around until she got too big.  Val carried her around even when she was full-grown and was surprised at how much he loved her.

I sent Dorian a picture of me and Rhoda. “Lucky dog!” he said. He said that I looked just like I did when I was 12 – the same joy, “like the day we got Fonzie.”

The Hod Carrier’s Morning Break

Break time, break time. The bricklayers go wherever they go. Here I put my hod aside. Here I sit against the new brick wall. I go half unconscious. Just half, just half. Francis, come home. That’s what they always say to me. Francis come home. They say I’m over the hill. Well, that’s not true. Maybe up the slope sort of far, but not over the hill. In the morning I rise sore all over as usual. Heavily I move to the bathroom and take my morning shower. I am filled with sorrow at there being another day. I wish in many ways that it would be over but I have to show them. Besides, I need more money. The longer I hang in there the more money I will have.

Prickles; bristling prickles of joy. In the basement of life, I live. Off of the walls I lick it. It oozes from the walls. I’ve got to show I’m still made of what I used to be made of—iron and steel. Fit to carry a hod. Fit to serve three bricklayers. Oh my God, my God, how tired I am. It’s curtains for me. There’s nothing sadder than someone who’s over the hill and won’t admit it. You need to go out with them wanting more, not wishing you would leave the stage. I am living proof. An old man like me has no business doing this. I should be off walking with a cane.

Hurry up! Hurry up to go to the memories. And the guts of the fish are steaming on the grass. On the grass in the soul of the land, it goes. It goes and goes and at last it is full of Freddie. I am over the hill from being full of Freddie. He went down to work and sat in his chair. He couldn’t comprehend it all. Hey, Mr. Bassman, he is gone in the guts of the thing, they are full of it. Hot damn—the egg! I wanted to go but I dare not go because I’m over the hill and I got no more to give, no more, no more to give like that and I’m behind the wheel of the limo and I’m speeding and here’s the warmth of an idea; I’m the driver of a limo. No more hod. Geese fried in the egg. That’s it.

Geese fried in the egg is my dish, Iron Chef! Hurtful naught, buy a knife, buy a uniform, wear it downtown wearing wooden shoes. Wear a German uniform downtown with Dutch wooden shoes on and go to the bar and sit. Oh I couldn’t be seen walking with him, I couldn’t be seen doing such things—you are you are you are the willow wand. You are the willow wand and I am the willow. What am I over the hill from? Being a hod carrier. Hot dog!

I want to go and run and do it, but I’m not so sure the men will have me, I’m not built like them, and I’m not sure the women will want me, I’m not built like them either. In the way he goes, up to the tippy top, point out the fryers in the lot of chickens, I should work in a chicken factory my job should be to spot the bad chickens and throw them in a bin at the side and use my nose and my eyes; if they are crispy without being cooked, they’re no good. I’m the streamliner come down the track, free, goop, idea, lost, Mighty Mouse, Mickey as opposed to mini.

I don’t think they will let me carry a hod much longer and they won’t let me go to the house to get my things and I am moving out that’s it it’s just like that, I’m moving out and I want nothing to do with you and I don’t know. What is the right word to say? What is in the cards? I’m an over the hill card player. They think—wait a minute—wait a minute—he’s over the hill, he’s got something to prove, he’s out to prove it, does he succeed or does he fail? Heft the hod. Heft it. They will know, when it’s over, if he had succeeded or failed. Like that story I read that time. You know the one.

The one about the Piano. He’s a washed-up piano player. He is, he is, he is, he is, yes yes yes yes, but he plays the shit out of the thing anyway. It dries up well in the sun but it stays wet in the shade. Something to do with hod carriers. There was warmth before. Let the warmth come up! Let it up! My hand went on the doorknob. The door opened. I stepped through. The Ventures are the guts of the sound and give out the wrong way to be the future people of the earth and I got hey! Trials! Froggy! Do it ripe in the Lenten season! And he’s got a door to go through beyond which he will know if he has succeeded or failed. I can make if I can make it I am just the one who can make it in the farts.

Away with Moon Unit Zappa. Moon kilns in Gene’s jeans. Merry goop! Go the way of the cross and carry the cross and go up the Via Dolorosa and toward the place of the skull and now take a break to read about the Ventures? What are you thinking my man? Are you kidding me? No no no, he is over the hill as a hod carrier, and he wildly prays to Jesus until it’s all over. Tell it slant. You got a lot of nerve. Using her words the way you do. God damn you! Up and up and up I go higher and higher up the count there’s still plenty of time to make it to the top and get off the ground for the sanity show and the silent heat lightning in the summer night and there’s so much going on too! Push, push, hurt! He is hurt!

On the ground he went, in the grey stone tackle box. My first song. I am Spanish. I only speak Spanish. There you go. Its all here in this file; cement a flash drive in the wall and you’ve got a bit of enzymaticism flowering in the darkness. Rush the tackle box. Rush it! The fish are in it and the cars flow by all multicolored tops and hoods and bumpers they don’t make them like they used to thank God they don’t make them like that any more. What are you doing uncle Albert? I’m overhauling this straight eight in this Pontiac. Cow. Cat. Barn. Fluff. Hurt the dry men. Hurt the dry men.

Death by ten thousand cuts. What a way to go. Have you seen the pictures of that? What death could be worse? Hurtfulness. I am not over the hill! I have a lot to prove! Get in the oil you fish! Dry the porcupine. Dead fox in the road. The organ swells. Dry in the poodle pen. There he is. They don’t live long. They can just drop dead just like that. That’s the best way to go. See, you’re not over the hill. Drive the car and grip the wheel and push the gas and go go go to the next place to be. Hurry hurry up tiny Tim, the male bandit. The house of pain in Peking China. Dry the fish. The crispy fish is dry. Wring out the friar’s way of life, gonna go try the friar’s way of life. Into the puddle drive the sedan.

Ouch! Ouch, he cried out. To the wall he leaned back on. I troll deep for the big ones they’re few and far between but when they’re big they’re worth it. Oh my God! Oh my God! I can still run with the best of them—that’s what he’s over the hill for—he was a runner and he went over the hill. Not a hod carrier at all. That is my limit. I can’t go any further I can’t I can’t it’s not in the cards for me I started from almost nothing and got up this high so I got to make it all the way, hot damn! The doctor will call and we’ll make another appointment and it’ll be okay with the doctor, hot damn!

He goes up the wall this high the first time, that high the second time, this high the third time, and yes, oh yes, I’m going to make it because I am not over the hill at all; the auto shop teacher cried let go of my finger before sending the boy to the principal’s office and Panetta said the world is shit and I’m zeroed in on it; it’s a game it’s all a game. I got it in my sights now and the eagle has landed—but the bricklayer comes by and taps me on the shoulder. Break’s over now, shit! Break’s over now, shit! Wait no need ten more wait no need ten more wait no need ten more there you go, break’s over now, shit! My eyes open. Here I come, I rise, regrip my hod. Here I come to the pile of bricks. Here I come back to the backbreaking job.

*** Translated back into English the above means the following: A brick hod is a three-sided box for carrying bricks or other construction materials, often mortar. It bears a long handle and is carried over the shoulder. A hod is usually long enough to accept four bricks on their side, however, by arranging the bricks in a chevron fashion, the number of bricks that may be carried is only limited to the weight the laborer can bear and the unwieldiness of that load. Hod carrying is an unskilled laboring occupation in the building industry. Typically ten to twelve bricks might be carried.

Typically the hod carrier or hoddie will be employed by a bricklaying team in a supporting role to the skilled bricklayers. Two bricklayers for each hod carrier is quite normal. The hoddie’s duties might include wetting the mortar boards on the scaffolding prior to fetching bricks from the delivery pallet using his hod and bringing them to two by two wide stacks upon the scaffold that may then be easily laid by the bricklayers. The carrier needs to time deliveries of bricks with deliveries of mortar—also carried in the hod, to ensure the bricklayers maintain a constant work rate. On sites without premixed mortar, the mortar will also be mixed by the hod carrier.

Bricks may be cut and assistance given to rake out the mortar joints, if that form of coursing joint is required, or in repointing work. The baseline rate for a bricklayer is to lay one thousand bricks a day, if the hod carrier is serving a team of two then he must move two thousand bricks although it is not uncommon for experienced hod carriers to serve three bricklayers. In the song Never Any Good, Martin Simpson describes his father as not steady enough for the office, not hard enough for the hod. In the classic Irish song Tim Finnegan, Tim carries a hod.

Poetry

I need to write a poem

A poem that will serve as peacekeeper

Between the God And Humanity

Between the brothers and sisters

Between my self and my mood

I need to find the verses

Be completely different from the past

And so new to fit in the present

Need to have one truth

Justified and accepted

Need to write a new story

A new book about the life

Every single day is a new discovery

People become evil

Failure earn in so many levels

And love is replaced with food

People are divided

Between those who love the food

Between those who love the humanity 

Need to write a poem about the fear

And the dark

But many of stars are shining

So must not affraid of darkness. But definitely need to re organize in our mind what the unknown is like?

People are divided

Between those who love the food

Between those who love the humanity

Is so, difficult to think with the stomach full

People forgot to love and they become

Slaves of their stomach

Little servants of this great stomach

That cannot filtre anything...

They cannot remember

Recognise the importance of

Share...

Poetry unites people

Poetry travels more fast than the unknown words, that remain unborn

In the mind of an author...

Need to write a poem 

About the happiness

The smile of the childrens....

About the love we need

The love i seek..

The care i want...

The happiness i dream...

The journey that never ends....

Who is the captain of the boat??



.......





A star

Wishing be a star

I could be a wish

No importance if I was big or small star

My wish it depends on the person that make it

Asking for peace and happiness

Wishing be a cloud

A Grey or a white

I could express the feelings of people who cannot speak

Rain day if they are sad

Sun day if they are happy

Wishing be a star



🎉🎉🎉🎉





You

You.....

 the face I did not see for years

You...

U are the most amazing being

But cannot touch

You,

The beauty is hiding in  small pieces in your body and mind

You...

I can explain why

But i know my what

You....

That one day you crossed my path

  Forces of love or passion touched me

Without reason

I am looking the east

U are looking the west

Miracles happens every day

You....

A passion I can live in a privately moment

Love I give

Love will never be understood

You...

In another space of galaxy

You..

My ideal

My secret Garden

You...

The moments I never had

You....

The distance between two countries

A bridge i will try to build ...to reach you

Still

Sally she is beautiful and sad
she is always unforgettable
a thousand colors in the sky
she looks like a night breeze
the world keeps making noise
Sally just blooms quietly
she loves the sky full of stars
and will be full of tears when looking at it
sunny days she would stand on the beach
looking out of sight
rainy days she would stand in front of the window 
hair hanging on her left shoulder
no one ever heard her talk about it
where do those sorrows come from
a night breeze blows under the moon
and she sighed softly
 

Lost Things

like a paper boat
that is what we’ve lost
thought I was not worth it
today I want to cry for all that
all the desires that have never been obtained
all the heartbreaking partings
all the time of drinking pain alone
now I’m crying for you 
the lost things won't come back
drifting far away with yesterday
I'm still sad when thinking of it
maybe this is what it looks like
like a paper boat
that’s what we lost
not because I'm not worth it
but because they are not you
 

One after Another

it’s all history scattered over the place 
picking it up carefully and looking at it it is full of misery 
never any tranquility underneath here
everyone is born with a burden 
when the sun comes out we will offer everything 
and not think about tomorrow when the barn is full
here we have never learned to dream
sticking on the ground for many thousand years
keep your mouth shut when you open the door
after closing the door the gongs and drums may shake the sky
eat every grain of rice in a dirty bowl
put down the bowl and wipe your mouth and forget the past
you and I are just ants
the wind is blown away like dust
whoever cares about whose face
trying to live is the only way

Roy Gu is Professor of English at Shanghai International Studies University, China. He has published poems and short stories in both English and Chinese. He has translated several books, including Love by Toni Morrison. He is also a singer-songwriter and has released folk music albums.

On the Loose 

On neighborhood listservs,
He keeps reading 
About dogs
Getting out,
That never
Would have happened
With his London,
He probably
Would have
Had a 
Heart attack 
If that had
Ever happened
With his London.


London 

It’s been
A few weeks
Since he had
A good cry
But the tears
Are really 
Flowing now,
He just
Misses her
So much.


Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Home Again,” his debut poetry collection, is due out later this year.

Slug

It’s coming up. The end 
of July. My vacation. Two 
weeks. That’s what I get. 
Not that I do anything. 
I don’t. Or go anywhere. 
Nah. Just sleep late. 
Binge watch anything, 
everything. Eat bags of 
potato chips (too many). 
Order Door Dash (too 
often.) A slug. Basically. 
That’s what I become. 
But now, but now. I have 
Amelia. And I’m thinking, 
thinking. Road trip. Dog 
parks. That’s what I’m 
thinking. You know. 
Visit all the dog parks 
in Georgia. Tennessee 
too. I guess. But only 
the best ones. Yeah. 
Only those. She’d love it. 
Amelia. She would. I mean. 
Let’s face it. Slugs. Eew! 
Anything’s better than that.     

Laura Stamps is the author of over 50 novels and poetry collections. Most recently: “The Good Dog” (Prolific Pulse Press 2023), “Addicted to Dog Magazines” (Impspired, 2023), and “My Friend Tells Me She Wants a Dog” (Kittyfeather Press, 2023). Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Lover of feral cats, Chihuahuas, and Yorkies.

THE HOW


Your quality – how was it shaped?

I was glacier before I was prairie,

Your character – how organized?

I was beached before I was tide,

a grave before I was buried.

Your proportion—how was it trained?

I burned long before I was sacrificed.


Your quality—how was it shaped?

I’m the silence that amplifies the noise

and the boiling part of the freeze.

Your beauty—how ornamented?

I’m the mute portion of my voice,

still a prison after I’m freed.



PARADISE UNFOUND


Firework flowers bonfire the ink ocean.

We too ignite as though comety sparks

in the dark spacious nothings between stars.

Attentive, like hero-shades bored with Hell,

astronomer geckos crowd across walls

to observe binary-system motions.


We awake after a morningless sleep

to the birdsong notes of a bamboo flute.

We breakfast on mangoes and passion fruit

from the wooden bowl on the wicker chair

beside the bed. The hardwood floor is bare.

The room is quiet and cool, as are we,

till together goes interminable.

Soon, palmtree shadows begin to revive.

We smile and sound silently our goodbyes.


And then I return to under the sun

to dissipate the burn of my alone

knowing full well it is invincible.


Later, the beach exchanges bikinis

for cruising wear and yellow lights erupt

and eyes and spirits conspire to corrupt

the sanctified romance of the harbor

and adventurers penetrate borders

and discover new springs of poetry



PROPERTIES


I wanted only a life unmortgaged--

how many stories I would furnish!

When I took hold of my time, my mansion,

I didn’t know how still I’d be transient.




CIRROUSSESTINA


Dust is the forgotten heart of my cloud,

a child of the earth orphaned in the sky,

a whisper of thunder before it's loud,

an ambition too humble to be proud,

as innocent as fleece before the dye.


Soot is the forgotten heart of my cloud.

No such elevation should be allowed,

(they say)

and nothing so lowly should get so high,

a whisper of thunder before it's loud.

Cloud-me may be alone or in a crowd,

my composition ordered or awry.


Smoke is the forgotten heart of my cloud.

This shriveled world is covered by a shroud

that shifts and gathers like unanswered Why?,

a whisper of thunder before it's loud.


I wish you too to live your life unbowed

from your time of youth to the time you die.

Sand is the forgotten heart of a cloud,

a whisper of thunder before it's loud.



HIGHWAY 14


I never went to Luxor

though we once drove to Rushmore

We loved the minestrone

we ate in Minnesota

en route to South Dakota.

The skies were paved with zircons

that she said must be diamonds.


And I thought of Ramesses

when we found Orion’s Belt,

though eager for Roosevelt

and Washington and Lincoln,

Crazy Horse and Jefferson

in all their granite glory.


Milky Way spilt through the night

like a Nile through vacant blight.

This Hathor cowboy obsessed

over sphinx and obelisk,

so we detoured off 14

for benben on Silent Guide.


My oracle realized

when we crossed the Bad River

toward the Six Grandfathers

Up South Down West, North, and East

that our stars weren’t carats,

they were our fatal scarabs.