From Slim to Slimmer

When she

Walked out

On him

He knew

That his chances

Of becoming

A father

Had gone

From slim

To slimmer.

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

THE WALL

On one side, evil
on one side, good.
But I could not always tell
which side was which of the wall
On one side, Devil.
On one side, God.
Sometimes I couldn’t distinguish
and sometimes not even wish to.
On one side, David,
one side, Ahab;
in their misuse of royal might
didn’t they both behave alike?
On one side Ahab,
on one side David,
putting their passion over prayer
didn’t they take what wasn’t theirs?
On one side God,
on one side Devil.
That wall less wall than saddle
when both sides I did straddle.
On both sides, good.
On both sides, evil.
Since no differences at all
I just demolish the wall.


NIGHT SHIFT

Last night I studied the sky from my porch,
Suddenly an ignited cosmic torch
burned and slashed through Cancer.
Even though I know my constellations
I continue to have doubts and questions,
but I doubt stars have the answers,

You, modeler of phases of my moon,
did you watch that spectacle from your room?
Our sections of the sky don’t quite rhyme,
our eternities look like different
patterns of buckshot in a canvas tent.
Whose Heaven’s bigger, yours or mine?


BARABBAS AND JESUS

Barabbas and Jesus
out walking in the sands
and along comes Pilate
wishing to wash his hands.

“Hey, Boss, why you so cross?”
the good Barabbas said.
And Pilate said “Herod!
John Baptist gave him head!”

“That’s mean!” said Magdalene
“Intruding on my job!”
Pilate: “Please understand”
(rehearsing for the mob)

“Someone must take the brunt,
it’s me or one of you.”
Barabbas thought and said
“Will nailing two thieves do?”

And Pilate said “My guy!
Indeed, that may suffice.”
But then they heard Peter’s
cock. It crowed only twice.

And Jesus wept. “The jig
is up. I’ll see you soon.
But first I’ll meet Judas
at the Last Chance Saloon.”

 
HIGH COUP

O moon, so distant….
I’m not smokin’ in Tokyo,
my poem will not fire.

“Revolution bursts
sunlight on stained stainless steel:
your yolkcolored hair.”

Night’s vaunted Shakespeare:
just flaccid Little Willie,
cold to geisha stars.

“Nestraw hair – egg’s eye
blue – honeyed limbs; trunkhugging
bearcubMe:     climbing.”

Sake enflames verse
(you say), arouses rhythm,
kindles rhymes sublime –

mine (old drunken whore) 
fires up unsuccessfully,
sucks relentlessly,

till we fall asleep.
And Basho a monk remains,
red raw poem limp, still.


LOVES I BEAR TO YOU

Addressing my allgirls class in Seoul 
(a sea of knees and eyes) – 
just whom do I cast my verbal net unto?


Miss J in her vast lostness of late adolescence


The mirthlessness of Miss O’s mercenary matrimonialism


The practiced spontaneity of Miss U’s blushes


Miss E’s patient burden of passionate virtue


The ancient futures of grown middleschool dreams



And then,
in midOthello,
the lights go




out




and in the sudden night
all that I can make out
are the pale fluorescent coral
of fingertips,



lips….

After my dad’s funeral

After my dad’s funeral, my mother got married to a butcher. I cried until I lost my voice, and then somebody I didn’t know transplanted a flower into my throat. Later, I became a one-eyed cat who could fly from mouth to mouth. I was light like a daydream masking the face of an immigrant child. The butcher coughed savagely, shaking his iron long tail to disturb me. I felt hungry, running toward my mother’s thigh to ask for a new chance. She said: no way, babe. He is our god. Just kneel before him. Just be a good girl.

I crawled into a corner, burying my face into the torn curtains calculating the distance between heaven and my father’s coffin. I wanted to be there. I wished to make a candy from the silky clouds& send it to him. I desired badly to meet his god and ask him if he was real or surreal. My stepfather gets closer. He holds scissors in one hand, and a cactus in the other. His grin swallowed the room.

Ode to my grandmother

My grandmother is an Alzheimer’s patient.
Last year she lost a tooth and memory. She began to confuse laughing with crying.
She started wearing our curtains, dating a late actor, and playing cards with my Shirazi cat.
“I love you, Granny” I always say. But she looks the other way waiting for Azrael.
She tells me how beautiful she used to be when she was my age.
I smile. My grandmother says she had a hoopoe once but couldn’t remember where he went. Maybe he hid in my chest? She wonders
she touches her nipples as if she tries to discover something new about them.
My little hoopoe, I miss you! She says with tears in both eyes.
The moment her last tear kissed the floor, I heard a sudden and strange sound coming from within, and then, just then my grandmother was gone.

The Trail

As usual, Israfil blows the trumpet. I sit on the edge of an animal’s tongue,

Thinking about how many times God massaged my neck.

The sky pours out random rumors about the curse of the Pharos.

I wave at a chimpanzee who looks like my father. We laugh.

I see a familiar face who reminds me of a popular leader.

Now he has turned into a clove flower.

How long were I here weaving more fairy tales over living and dead?

A cherry tree wears a rosary, buzzing like a bumblebee.

I am looking for anything to blame God for. The last hour will come after a few seconds.

When my face becomes a starfish, and when the sun gets smaller to fit the size of my pocket,

When water fills my grassy mouth, I begin to count the scars carved around my belly.

A lot of moons and poems mixed with my blood. Do you know laughter?

I ask God, who hasn’t a throne or golden chairs. He squeezes my hand and whispers into my ears, I am the inventor. Three little angels engrave the first letters of their names on the tree of paradise. I run, wondering how Adam and Eve ate each other.

I still hear the breaking news, although this is my second death.

God was holding a pair of scissors, managing to touch the tip of my nose.

Everything is purple. Another version of me was crucified to a wall.

I kneel on a prayer mat. Butterflies circled around my body.

Now I understand that I am preparing for a new death. Good girl,

Israfil says. I smile, swallowing more stars. God knows how to create entertainment.

The crime

Someone knocked me down& mailed my corpse to a floating cavern.

Each part of my body sings a lullaby.

Sometimes I hear elephants telling a folk tale.

Sometimes I hear frogs drumming out of my ear.

The angel of death boils a banana to feed his young.

I am sweating wondering if the hell was a short joke.

A blind woman shedding her skin. She has a witch’s fingers.

I look into her eyes& it takes me to a tulip garden.

My arm turned into a wise man.it talks to me as if he spent all his life as a philosopher.

I kneel among many little moons.

God is nearby, wearing a grand hat made of milky cloud.

Talk to me, he says pointing his finger to an upper window.

I have a genie inside, I say.

God laughs. This is an old joke.

I try to kill myself, but I remember that I am already dead.

The man who slaughtered me was an artist.

He knows how to squeeze castor oil into my fully open eyes.

Transformation

I dream of cockatoo birds sipping milk from the sky

I fly from corner to corner holding sugar, wine, and more funny jokes.

God is up sitting on his throne watching how the earth dances under my bare feet.

Kisses, wishes and more than that riding silver horses.

Creamy cloud falling down close to my head singing an old song.

My bones covered by the rhythm. My tongue turned into a butterfly. I sway in the air thinking of the worlds I pass dreaming of more honey rivers to have more fun, wondering how many orphan girls still live within me.

I try to raise both hands throwing them to a new universal castle. I feel new again. I sense more than being alive. There is something beyond happiness. There is delicious beyond joy.

Believe me, there is music you have never heard of.

Hallucinations

I had a dream of cows lead some people;

Who were humming an old-fashioned poem.

The sound of the flute was coming out from the teeth of an ancient Oak tree.

In that dream also, there was a moon and a half falling into my mother’s lap

She was stitching a great piece of the sky upon the little heads of three terrified cats.

I had a dream of being a gorilla

The dirt was caked perfectly with my fingers

I was another version of myself

Peeping into another world

Bathing in another water.

My body had billions of rooms

Empty ones without guests.

I was closed to be a river

But the temptation to be something bigger

Made me kneel

Swerving like a verse

Hovers like an angel’s napkin.

Shivers like a love song

In a poet’s chest.

Seven Souls 

(The Dogs in my Life)

• for all of them everywhere 

Kelly (a Beagle Sensitive and Kind)

When I was a kid that was our dog. She sat in her place after school and kept me company, but when I was sick she knew and came to sit beside me. At other times I let her sit on the couch with a pillow which wasn’t allowed but if nobody was around I let her and she loved it. Kelly would wag her tail a lot and loved to see people, guests. I think back at her with good memories and sitting with her on say, those winter days and looking out the window at the snow falling onto the world. 

Poocho (the Tender and Instant Family Member)

He was a rescue and already had some years. A great old lab. But he had a good run as it were with us and was provided a nice home with two parents and kids, three kids. He went camping with us, and for walks in the local trails and ravines. Basically he was perfect in that he caused no trouble and just wanted to be around us. He had a comfy old chair he sat on and liked to sleep on. Sometimes people would ask why we kept that chair but they didn’t understand. I am happy that we here gave him a nice few years before he had to go the great dog fields in the sky. 

Wolfe (the High Spirit and a Best Friend)

A special dog in all ways. A rescue husky mix. They said collie-husky. Long legs. A certain aloofness he was grey and white and black and everyone stopped to look at him. Fast. Smart. Interesting. Unique. He is running somewhere up there and having a good time. Down here we certainly went far and often to fields and forests.  

Tessa (all Bark and Sits in my Heart)

Tessa recently passed but I am glad she is not in any more pain though I and everyone miss her and always shall. She was a companion that had the truest loyalty and heart. She was always a sort of old lady in that she didn’t want to go far exploring though did like to walk. In the hey-day she played and walked with her brother Wolfe and we did everything we could each day to have a healthy and good life. 

Indy (Handsome and Tara’s Birthday Gift)

Indy is a beautiful light hair collie, long and handsome, and Tara’s dog. He likes everyone though. He is very sensitive and his coat is wonderful and a bit longer than the others. He likes to run fast and take care of his younger sister Luna. Josh brought him home one September for Tara’s birthday and he fit in instantly and it’s been great. 

Luna (the Looney that we All Love)

Luna we went and got from Barrie Ontario, and she is half husky, the colour white, short hair, and has a strong spirit to say the least. She is afraid of nothing and likes to swim, play, wrestle, but also cuddle and just chill. She keeps everybody on their toes and is a great, great member of our family. 

Nova (a Spirit Strong)

Nova is our niece Diane’s dog. She lives with us right now because our niece does. I love Nova and she sometimes follows me around. She is a wonderful dog, who has learned to go to the forest trails with us. She isn’t crazy about going in the water, but went into a little nice cold stream briefly today and seemed okay with it. Nova is a black dog, and her coat seems to shine. She has a kind and inquisitive look in her eyes as she looks at you and the world. 

Raquel Bianca Barbeito (the artist) is a student of Animal Biology at The University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. She is also a painter and has done commissioned work for clients who want custom animal portrait creations.  Raquel works on canvas with acrylic paints. 

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