Poetry: Selections from Taylor Dibbert

Nowhere to Hide

He’s meeting a friend for drinks

At his local watering hole

And the two of them

Talk about all kinds of things,

And then his friend asks him

If he still writes poetry

And he says yes,

And the friend asks what it is

About poetry that he likes so much,

And he doesn’t know where to begin,

The search for precision,

The examination of pain,

Revisiting old scars and

Processing fresh wounds,

Readying oneself

For the trauma and triumphs ahead,

But more than anything else,

What he likes about poetry

Is the urgent need to get to the point

And the fact that there’s nowhere to hide.

Drama Junkies

Stay away

From those

Drawn to drama,

Things won’t change

With time.

Liquid Distractions

Modelo Especial

And Bulleit Bourbon,

A combination

That’s really

Working tonight,

Not because

It’s easing

The heartbreak

Of losing London,

But because

It’s distracting him

From thinking about

All the pain

That’s still to come.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet. He's author of the Peace Corps memoir Fiesta of Sunset, and the forthcoming poetry collection Home Again.