Election Results

He’s staying 

Up late

With a box

Of wine

And a frozen pizza,

A meal 

That he’s hardly

Able to taste,

Except for

The worry

And the sadness

And the fear.

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

COCOON

I saw my externist today

and got my prescriptions filled

for a well-curated array

of armor auras and pills

to protect me against weathers

and germs. And also to blunt,

like a cuirass wrought of leather,

the intimacy of hugs

and the taste and touch of kisses.

In this invisible plate

I can discover what bliss is,

now that I’m inviolate.

THE ENGAGEMENT

Every man must embrace his war.

Our crown and temples we must defend,

our missionary positions enforce.

Ignore our sacrifice of semen.

We engage body against body

for the future sakes of all the children.

 Until a little peace is rendered

we expose our privates at the front;

we bear arms but only to surrender.

A ROPE AND A PIPE

The sharpshooter’s father

learned to dance

when he married the ropemaker’s daughter.

“No saddle

instructs the horse to prance.

The lesson is always in the bridle.

Nothing is so efficient as a gun’s

violence,”

the marksman taught his son.

“The bullet

can establish your best environment,

find your foe and kill it.

Sing to me when I die

if you wish,

but know that music’s a waste of your time.

Don’t get drunk,

and put down that damn flute! Be like the fish,

who only dance when hooked.”

And the son followed his dad’s direction.

A trigger

captained his affections.

But his flute

and humble philosophy and liquor

led him to peace and truth.

BY INVITATION ONLY

No. Lacking your exact welcome mat,

my poems/your name cannot attach.

Not entitled to your writhing nights

or flash-thoughts of unsari’d thigh,

a-thirst I stand at the Well of Unrequited.

THE SHIP

Oh, the mariner is like the moon;

perfect the once in the month

when my land concedes to your sea.

Our boat was, before, a forest,

leaves like sails, winds

like a petrel’s exhale.

Anchored by a stone that once

hugged earth, like mom and son.

And the sea, the sea. The basket

of stars upside-downed, so all

its flowers scatter everywhere.

HOLOCAUST AND REGENERATION

Fires hibernate in the trees.

The forest flowers,

red and gray,

race through underbrush,

uproot wild life

and humanity.

The burn tattoos the earth.

But growth curls within the rain.

Balmful sky rivers

swell heaven’s banks

to soothe scar wounds.

Seeds find footholds

for a newer green.

Creatures settle in.

Havoc hides inside the grain.

Fields uncelibate themselves.

We clear space

to celebrate

to dance to drink

to lure relief

from the caress that grinds.

Alone

This sound says more than I can say Your trail stretched out in front of me But I don’t feel capable of walking it It’s like a cold shadow that doesn’t allow the seed to sprout, An interrupted laugh still in my throat…. And I’ll still be here at midnight At the nearest train station, towers of fog lie on the night roads of the mind, Follow the line of reason; the intrepid destiny of dawn, Before the world spins and the heart shakes, The space opens for another farewell wave…

I want you closer, but I don’t know where to start. The night kissed the wind and the rain fainted around the corner, The welcome signs faded into the landscape. One time, joy folded her tiny hand and snapped her fingers into glittery lights. In my thinnest version it was necessary to be vast and embrace all sights. Only among the white-capped Nordic mountains did a new day emerge transiently, And each step made everything coexist simultaneously, and perhaps it had been like this since the beginning: white sand house, blue flame of the northern lights, coastal mill headquarters, salt dune, matrix flora, abyssal paradise, rainbow in the shape of a pinwheel.

Andrea Ceccomori, the flutist who is conquering the world

Andrea Ceccomori, flutist and founder of Assisi Suono Sacro, is now the most acclaimed flutist in the world, an eclectic artist with an always generous invention. Assisi, where Saint Francis was born, is twinned with San Francisco, founded by the Franciscan missions. This Franciscan imprint of SF is expressed through cultural and religious dialogue and in care for animals and nature. An aspect of Saint Francis that should be remembered is that he was the first to create a religious bridge between Christians and Muslims through the king of Egypt Kamel. Ceccomori, who has concerts scheduled also in Egypt, has just had two recent successes: one at the beginning of October in SF on the occasion of the celebration of the St. Francis feast day at the SF Shrine church and Porziuncola Nuova and the other in China, where Ceccomori is popular. Ceccomori’s tour with pianist Sebastiano Brusco ended on November 2nd at the Art Oriental Theatre in Shanghai.

Ceccomori played a program of classical pieces such as Bach, Donizetti, Franck, Briccialdi, Rossini, Massenet, and Debussy, along with pieces composed by him including his hymn to peace and other Chinese pieces very popular in China such as Butterfly Lovers and My Motherland.

In the first part of the tour also participated the soprano Chiara Giudice who sang pieces by Puccini and Verdi. Shanghai Media Group curated the events and “Guiyahui” by Emma Wang Qin promoted the mega tour with concerts at the UCAS University in Beijing, the most important university in China and at the University of Hangzhou and at the International Festival Encuentros Art in Uangshang, with lectures by Ceccomori in a climate of exchanges with Chinese artists who often travel to SF where 35% of the city’s population is Chinese. Ceccomori is very attached to poetry and especially to that of Saint Francis. The flutist wrote the music for the famous “Canticle of the Creatures” by Saint Francis with a concert in Rome in 2022 and in Vienna in 2023 and has a project where the recitation of the “Canticle” of Saint Francis in the original language and in English will be part of his homonymous concert. 

From the Louvre in Paris to the Lincoln Center in NYC, Ceccomori, also artistic director of the Assisi Suono Sacro festival, is intensifying his relations with the city of SF to consolidate splendid artistic and cultural bridges.