Visa Office

He’s in Colombo

Trying to renew

His tourist visa

One more time

He knows

What comes next

And there’s nothing

He can do to stop it

He’s the main character

In the novel 

That Saramago

Was unable to write.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of, most recently, the poetry collection “Takoma.”

An Overcomer Pauses, Momentarily, To Reflect

It is the rising back up

not the falling down

which determines

your character…

make yourself proud.

I SHINE out brightly

‘Creativity’…

an equal b-a-l-a-n-c-e

of positive and negative

… for such is life.

I want nothing,

nor no-one… I cannot

achieve honestly,

and adds to my Flow.

I’m coming at success

from a disadvantage…

a position I helped

construct from disaster.

Yet, I’m pleased with

the man I am today…

and even happier with

the one I am becoming.

Different, Now… No Hand Of God, I Sculpt Myself

I refuse to accept relationship retreads

… Winter is warmed

by logs once planted in Spring…

seesaw ‘Effort’ or lose ‘Balance’

… carrying someone else’s share

is either ‘Temporary’ or a BURDEN.

Empathy will only help ‘Support’

but will not FIX any Shadow Work

… Healing Thyself stops you

reaching outwards

and (Instead) finding Adult Solutions.

Each time you’ve got an Opportunity

to be ‘Mean’ and you turn away

… you GROW, and are Rewarded

with Elevation, and (Healthy) ‘Pride’.

I used to consider myself a Mirror,

giving/dishing out exactly what I got

… now, I am not even in the room,

a Ghost, you are lucky to be even near.

It Ends Here

No Jamboree awarded

… frown-wrinkled…

the gulf between

a narcissist’s REAL

SELF and its ‘mask’

is phenomenally wide.

Bang your pots,

make a loud noise…

you only ‘intimidate’

weak people… coward.

Learning To Grow Where There’s No Light But Hope

Replacing ‘Binge’ and ‘Moodswing’

with consistent productivity…

to not be ‘Triggered’

requires the wearing of less Armour.

I’m not arguing with you

because you’re ‘Angry’…

I’m not ‘Angry’, I’m ‘Smiling’

and taking the scenic route to Calm.

My ambition requires solo journeys

… with occasional handshakes

with mutually respectful individuals

where ‘Deals’ are made

towards ‘Advancement’ not ‘Snake’.

I do not predict ‘Trouble’,

I’m merely aware of its presence…

along the Pathway to Success which

‘Intertwines’ with that Road to Ruin.

The Spell Is Broken

Just watch her ‘Composure’

absolutely do one…

the moment he walks in,

and completely ignores her.

There are 3 of them,

foolishly and egotistically

playing ‘Musical Chairs’

in his Energy and Attention.

He’s after ‘Clemence’…

but, she’s not here, is she

… no, she’s not interested

in ‘Playas’… she’s decent.

We’ve BLOCKED them

out completely…

took us months to do it

… we lost Natalie, Sarah,

Bridget and Lorraine

in the complicated process.

And now, the Predators

are ‘Optionless’ (at least

in our circle)… so have

fallen back to swordfight

amongst their wicked selves.

Seating Arrangements

‘Wending’… only whilst

up to no good,

otherwise on a mission

marching direct/focused.

You’re complaining

about the ‘inconsistency’

of an inconsistent person

… that’s why I stopped

bothering with you…

I’m not offended, at all

… you can make

no sense all by yourself.

I do not ‘approach’

nor ‘close the distance’

… I decide, fixedly,

upon whom to let sit

down upon the handful

of valuable ‘Chairs’

which I am entertaining

at the changeable moment.

Unconscious Soul-Prisons Be Damned

I sat listening as you kept referring

to her as your ‘Rock’

… whilst, observing her

Basting your ‘Misery’ moist

with a delicate, calculated Cruelty.

Each time you… reached…

to do something ‘Independent’

she was there to Intervene

with a “Let me, dearest,”

and you’d (unthinkingly) SHRink

back down to ‘Pet Size’ again.

Whenever your contagious,

brilliant Enthusiasm and Passion

… reared their beautiful heads,

they were met with “Be careful

that you don’t excite yourself

too much, and have another turn.”

‘I can’t watch anymore’ I thought,

rising up onto my feet to leave…

“Don’t you ever get lonely?”

you asked at the front door step

as we said our last ever goodbye.

“… I couldn’t do it, myself,

I just don’t know what I’d do with

-out her in my life, I really don’t.”

“Become ‘Yourself’ again,”

I answered sincerely, walking away.

Paul Tristram is a Welsh ‘Street’ Writer who has poems, short stories & flash fiction published in hundreds of different publications all around the world. He yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

His novel “Crazy Like Emotion”, shorter fiction collection “Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves” and full-length poetry collections “The Dark Side Of British Poetry: Book 1 of Urban, Cinematic, Degeneration” and “It Is Big And It Is Clever: Book 1 Of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” are available from Close To The Bone Publishing.

MY LIFE IN TORNADO ALLEY

--came screaming
through my home
upending it all
in an instant
and then

left
my tattered vacuum
behind, forever--

:the wind and the women

BENEFICE

At my baptism feast
I was immersed
adorned in gown and turban.

The host, swollen with yeast
and drunk with thirst,
cavorted like a merman.

I thrust my jolly priest
into your church
and delivered my sermon.

Hallelujah!


BIRTH-GROWTH-DEATH

We wear our trinity within:
Birth Growth Death.

We place our lots
between these dots:
Birth Growth Death.

Expand the beginning, then end.



Though by zeroes
we are enclosed
--Birth Growth Death--

we still contain infinities.
Birth Growth Death.

I, BIBLIOPHILE

One wife memorized Solomon
to reminisce our marriage.
And another remembered Spenser
in bequest to our sons.
And my mistress archived Milton
to remind me of my sin.
If only I’d had more lovers
I’d have read more libraries.


O FORMER LOVERS

What did you do n my life? Were you the butcher or the bride? My savior? A suicide?
O countess, accountant, or clown: the one who talked all my airplanes down?
Forgotten parents, let's make amends.
(Or is my asking a form of revenge?)
You wanted straighten, I wanted bend.
The times I broke out, where were you then?
hi ho rally ree, hi ho rally ree
hi ho hi ho hi ho rally ree
O life, you're a fife
that plays out of tune.I plug my ears shut
but still hear your song.
Hi ho hi ho rally ree
O former lovers can't we be friends?
So many starting lines only dead ends.
Snippets of love songs lost to the winds.
O former loved ones, why not be friends?
hi ho rally ree, hi ho rally ree
hi ho hi ho hi hom rally ree
Life is a wife
who's made out of tongue,
Who talks while I fuck—
just on on and on,,,
hi ho hi ho rally ree
 O unborn bastards, shall we pretend?
Could we have saved some instead of just spend?
Why can't the onces becomee once agains?
Quit filling rivers with corpses and cans.
Hi ho hi ho hi ho rally ree
O — life is a knife
and it's nine feet long.
We're stuck in the gut
And then we are gone.
hi ho hi ho  rally ree
In your life, what was I? Just one more endless hammer on the anvil of your nights?
Rusty dull umbilical scissors? Unspooled string to your puffed up kite?

The philosophy of life through mathematics

Some people say that mathematics is a difficult subject, while others find it boring. However, in reality, mathematics gives us hope that there are solutions to problems in life, just like the examples in mathematics. I also have to say that mathematics is the greatest motivator for people because the numbers in mathematics start from  0 and go to infinity.

To those who say mathematics is difficult, I would recommend that they try to engage with this subject a little more sincerely. Some young children may struggle to learn mathematics because of textbooks. For example, in elementary school, it is taught that a smaller number cannot be subtracted from a large one. However, in higher grades, it is taught that a smaller number can be subtracted from a large one, but the result will be negative.

Moreover, we can say that some current textbooks are also becoming complex. I  find that some mathematical topics and examples reflect human interpretations. Parallel lines never intersect, and in this, I see people who, no matter how many hours, months, or years pass, will never be together. Tangent curves, on the other hand, intersect only once and then part ways for life paths as if nothing had happened. In solving trigonometric equations and inequations, we are given an interval, within that range and discard the unnecessary ones. I compare this to making decisions in life.

However, our faces, fingers, hands, feet, and body structure -all of these are based on the “golden ratio”. The golden ratio is not typically covered in textbooks, but I will explain it briefly and simply. If you pay attention, you`ll notice that people tend to sit not in the exact center or the very edge of a bench, but somewhere between the center and the edge. This is the first example of the golden ratio. Another example is your face: if you observe closely, the distance between your nose and eyes your eyebrows and eyes, and the length between your two eyes, and the length between your two eyes are all proportional to the golden ratio. In general, I can say that life is mathematics, and even the simple things in our lives are mathematics.

A Simpler Past

A respite from our Postmodern anxiety, occasionally I require a few recollections from a simpler past, anecdotes like these inherited from my grandparents, Ray and Louise, at the Arnholt Place, down in the Danville holler, sometime in the 30s.

Through a hole cut in the floor for heat, three brothers, my father, Dan, and uncles, Stanton and Wayne, scrawny little boys all in one bed and quarantined for measles, took turns peering from the upstairs to the downstairs. After a great commotion, Grandma Frye called up, “Meet your new baby sister.” Aunt Jane, red-faced, more from first breaths than bashfulness, looked up to them.

A few years earlier or later, Blubaugh cousins from Canton stopped by the farm on a Sunday drive. Finding no one home, all in good fun, they switched all the upstairs beds and dressers with all the downstairs chairs and tables. It didn’t take long as Ray and Louise owned nothing but each other, hard work, back taxes and a few sticks of furniture.

Downstairs in the kitchen, on most Saturday nights, Ray and Louise played Euchre with Ed and Sally Styers, hour after hour, for “Drink or Smell.” If you won a hand, you drank Granddad’s hard cider. If you lost, you only smelled the glass. Too much winning and cider would ensure your losing again.

Badminton

Reality collided with fantasy when I was five or six or seven. I was the oldest and for a while the only grandchild. In this account, do consider that there was a new cousin, Jimmy, on the scene who seemed to be getting far too much attention for a tedious baby. The transgression occurred at a picnic on the Gambier farm, maybe Mothers’ Day, between Sunday dinner, home-churned ice cream and the evening milking chores. Grandma, the center of all my love (And, of course, I was the object of all her doting.), sat on the front stoop watching the young couples play badminton.

With a racquet, I thwacked her on her head. (There it is; there’s no denying it now.) At the time, this seemed a perfectly reasonable attempt at play. On our new color TV, in Saturday morning cartoons, this violence was customary etiquette, a harmless greeting set to zany music. “Hello there! Good day to you, sir. A pleasure to meet you, Miss.” The racquet would be demolished; however, magically, not the noggin. Occasionally, lumps appeared, but these were efficiently tapped down with a mallet that all the characters carried for just such events. Each recipient got right back up again with a witty retort. Animated conversations continued unabated and without consequence.

Uncles helped Grandma to the couch. I recall an excessive amount of unnecessary yelling. I presume, at some point, I cried, though I was puzzled, confused over inquiries as to the why. In my first formal apology, even so small, I was acutely aware that my future within the family hinged upon an Act of Contrition. (I was new to the confessional, but I realized what transpired also had the potential of sin and so demanded a detailed explanation for Father Fortkamp as well an inordinate assignment of Our Fathers or Hail Marys. I had not fully memorized the longer Apostles Creed and dreaded this possibility.) Years later, an aunt informed me: apparently, there was a trip to Mercy Hospital and thirteen stitches.

The Dark Night of the Soul

[Originally published in Spare Change News and in Fleury’s book: “It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere and Other Stories”]

     Benny stares through his basement window and he can feel his heart rejoicing once again by the absence of the sun. The sun has become his worst enemy since his parents died, his wife left him and his only son has been officially declared MIA (missing in action) while fighting the war in Iraq. These days, he hardly leaves his apartment. He closes all the shades, draws all the curtains and turns off all the lights while he just lies on his back with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes transfixed at the white ceiling. Sometimes he lays with his back to all the stuff he has accumulated over the years. Stuff that he can’t seem to bring himself to get rid of. He likes to rummage through other people’s trash and bring various things to his already cramped space. There is so much stuff in his place that there’s hardly any room for himself. 

Clothes carpet his floors; empty take-out boxes are all piled up in one corner of his bedroom next to the TV and there are a number of shopping bags filled with trash rotting in the kitchen and maggots have taken residence under them. His window overlooks the sky and he often feels like God is looking down on him. The phone lately has been ringing with a sort of desperate urgency, yet Benny remains completely still as if he hasn’t heard it at all and just lets the machine deal with the incessant calls. His friends, or at least the few he has managed to hold on to, must be wondering about where he is. He has once before tried to end it all by starving himself of food and water for nearly two weeks. But at the last minute changed his mind and decided to have a can of coke and a slice of pizza.

     He has ceased to maintain any sort of personal care and he is beginning to smell. His apartment has a stale order of decay swirling lazily around the air. The smell is akin to rat and mice droppings, if you’ve ever had the misfortune to smell that particular odor. There are litters of unwashed dishes in the sink, mold all over his bathroom walls, a mailbox full of unopened mail and a mass of newspapers piled up in front of his door. From an outsider’s point of view, it would seem as if no one lives there at all. Day after day, Benny just lies there, living a death in life with nothing to look forward to or get up out of bed for. “What a waste,” he thinks to himself. “Just taking up space.” Death seems to be constantly tip-toeing around him, waiting for the right time to finish him off.

     He remembers happier times when his wife Lola sat in the sand on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard building a sandcastle with their son, little Jimmy. Her long straight Brown hair flirting and twirling in the summer wind while Little Jimmy screeches with joy and laughter “Daddy look! Look Daddy. I made a castle! I made a castle!”  He remembers looking on and smiling with an open book on his lap and thinking how complete his life is finally, as the summer wind gently lifts his blond hair off his forehead. He remembers feeling the joy of a man who constantly keeps winning the lottery repeatedly every time he thinks about his life with his beloved family. His parents were still alive back then and they used to go visit them on the cape where they all lived. But his bouts with depression and psychosis have driven his wife away. She could no longer tolerate his bouts of rage and paranoia that plagued him when he was ill. She begged and pleaded with him to seek treatment, but he refused to admit that he is even sick at all.

Eventually, his denial and the ensuing consequences drove her away. She feared that had she not left him, she would start hating him and she could not contend with that possibility. So in spite of herself, she left and took little Jimmy with her. That exacerbated his already declining mental health. She had custody and he had the weekends. His visitations became less and less regular as his life careened out of control due to his untreated mental condition. Before he knew it, Little Jimmy turned eighteen and joined the army. He had an on again and off again relationship with Lola. On when he was well, off when he was not.

     Now lonely and bereft of emotion, he lies motionless on his disheveled bed staring at the ceiling of his sinister apartment waiting for something, anything to happen to make him feel alive again. He used to be a man who made things happen; now he has become a man who waits for things to happen. He used to walk around with a half-smile on his face, a twinkle of joy and mischief in his eyes and a restless eagerness in his steps. He used to be the life of anywhere he happens to be, always ready to crack a joke or laugh at someone else’s. He used to pretend to walk around like a sad man with his head hanging over his chest, and then suddenly perk right back up again laughing at himself. Now, he feels that his fire has been snuffed out by a giant bright red hand that has descended directly from hell.

     The phone is ringing again and it goes directly to the machine. “Hey Benny. It’s George. What’s goin’ man? I haven’t heard from you in days. I’m starting to worry. Call me.” He lies still unresponsive.  He decides that tomorrow he will do something, anything, even though he does not know what it is. He’ll find out when he actually does it.

   The next day, a streak of sunlight slices his bedroom floor and for the first time in months, he does not mind its shiny glare. “Today’s forecast is expected to be sunny and temperatures are expected to reach record high for March.” He listens to his clock radio as he gets out of bed. For the first time in months, he has decided to clean himself up. He showers, shaves, puts on clean clothes and even cleans his dirty apartment. He opens his nightstand and grabs his rosary beads. He makes the sign of the cross using his middle finger first on his forehead, then chest then his left and right shoulders. He then says a quiet prayer then leaves the apartment. He passes in front of the mirror and smiles at himself as he heads out. He gets on the train and heads and finds himself getting off at the stop near the beach, the same beach he used to spend time with his family. He spends all day at the beach, watching happy families, seagulls and listening to the soothing sounds of the waves. He is waiting for darkness to fall and soon, the sun descends into the belly of the sea and everyone has left the beach. He lies in the sand on his back with his hands clasped behind his head as he stares into the dark skies, which he feels promises him nothing.

At midnight, he gets up and walks toward the sea. The voices of his wife and son echo in his ears from that perfect summer day he remembers so well— “Daddy look! Look Daddy!”—as he enters the sea until he is completely submerged to dwell forever in its abyss. Just then, back home his wife left him a message about possibly getting back together if he’s willing to go into treatment, his son is leaving him a message announcing his homecoming and the moon emerges to hover over the sea and diminish the darkness. His soul wishes he was there to come and see.

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self”  & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of  Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…  He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.