States' rights,
what kind of noose
is so perverse
it wraps
around compassion
til choked?
What portion
of this script
did I write?
Oh yeah,
I'm supposed
to be the victim,
pretend I did not
see this train
barrelling down.
Deep in the heart
I can't pretend,
the surprise
was not telegraphed.
What a cheap shot
to fire all barrels
at the republic
expecting to escape
a ricochet,
pacivity its own
worst enemy.
Besides,
if my people
had not been
so intent on
disclosure
who would
have known?
We could have stayed
invisible,
living the American Dream,
Torch Song Trilogy
under the sofa
hidden like love
that dared not speak
its name.
Apr 21, 2019
Apr 21, 2019 at 5:22 AM UTC
Attempt number 13
all because I believed
what she said about me.
Even a young gay man
in the bowels of the south
deserved better.
Fortunately altruism
delivered me.
Apr 21, 2019
Apr 21, 2019 at 5:16 AM UTC
I have lived largely
but been so small
that needles concealed
by stacks of hay
seemed gigantic
by comparison.
Moments of ecstasy
have faded to decades
of sadness
until I became
convinced solitude,
my preference.
In the market
where fears arise
there are too many voices
competing for housing
in my head,
I need a nap!
No one falls
through cracks
they are pushed,
how much gentler
I could have been,
instead of becoming
that boy with the sling
armed only with a pebble
and a desire to survive
a world turned grotesque.
Apr 18, 2019
Apr 18, 2019 at 11:28 AM UTC
Each time I read his nick
I remember our two countries
were in stalemate during my youth.
My government
wanted me to believe
that if we bested his to the moon
his citizens would forever be subjugated
to second rate status.
I knew but a little, certainly
one could not judge
with the equivalent of a space age
sporting event.
Now we are at it again,
suspicions well fed
by twenty-four hour
social media with nothing
but separatism on the brain.
Alex is my friend of choice,
neither he nor I selected the lands
reared within, enemies
do not care for one another
as brothers.
Be ****** the drama
of political intrigue,
I want more from our friendship
than the uneasy truce
of another era of detente.
Apr 18, 2019
Apr 18, 2019 at 11:14 AM UTC
I never thought it would be me,
had been assured by professionals
I did not possess the capacity,
that those who had committed wrong,
had in reality nothing to fear
but the lash of a sharp tongue.
One evening everything changed,
the magic which had kept me safe,
kept me out of touch with that portion
of my civility I feared an illusion,
simply evaporated.
When the police arrived,
everything was silent.
The corpses a few yards from me
would have no confessions,
could add nothing to unravel
the mystery.
It is often said, every man and woman
has a breaking point,
my immunity to this truest of tales
abandoned me as surely as protection
via inoculation, had failed under assault
by November's flu.
But now I had removed myself from
that controlled humanity
of whom I had always been so proud.
Fingers clenched my smoking gun
like they had never been apart
just a familiar hand in a fitted glove.
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 6:37 AM UTC
My brother's wife is dying,
diagnosed three months
prior to my spouse
they have had almost
three years.
I am happy to have been first,
for now I know how to be
that older brother
never there for him before.
It is peaceful on the farm
the cycles present themselves
as nature instructs,
together they bury the beloved
in the garden.
My dear ones fashion markers from
bark, agates, photographs
and feelings.
I watched them laugh
in the heat of the brutal
southern summer
hosing each other cool
naked as jays in their fifties,
humor comes without
a date of expiration.
My brother is the family
genealogist, he knows every
detail of our heritage,
knows his black neighbor
is our relative,
when they fish they are uncle
and cousin.
Laura prepares them sandwiches
from the garden, curses the raccoons
for eating all but the last tomatoes,
she slathers them with mayo
for the boys on the plantation's
levy.
Bob takes her for chemo at 6am
all year long.
They read each copy of Prism
in the cubicle
while Laura is tethered,
making mental notes
of my perceptions
for accuracy.
Soon I will get the call
I will be up even though
it is 2am.
What we say to one another
will be private but only for
a time.
Life is designed to be shared,
it is not a secret hell
to be endured.
We will likely walk again
on the rich soil Laura
called "Green Acres."
He will see her planting
cukes and maters in spring
grateful for the strength
of wreckless youth
which drove her from the Bronx
at 17 determined not to be
the butterfly of New York class
with all its dreadful
opportunities.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 8:15 AM UTC
Dear God, when will it stop?
The tearing of my cathedral
whose blind lids once covered
the catastrophe of your visions.
I was your lover or something close,
a petrified forest whose roots
played with frozen emotions
afraid of the truth, the Freud child's
awareness, fine as broth brewing
enraged as incestuous
insanity.
His screams are disguised
like ********** love,
temerity so wretched
the walls look like nuggets,
golden as the sun
necessary as illusions,
pretty as lemons
but sour as miniature acres,
terrified hatreds.
Real men won't get it,
won't believe they've advanced
past her age of debauchery,
while savagery sings lullabies,
content as a handicap
twisted in the night
like perpetual
love.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 8:06 AM UTC
Way over my head the ladle
that made astronomy tilts
as the shower of meteors
of which we have all been
warned comes to fruition.
It's glitter empties into
the black sea of darkness
flickering until each is
a dead bulb with a broken
filament.
I walk forward,
my attention wanders
long enough for
the deadly strike of
a spilled star not quite
incinerated on its way
down.
And so it goes,
another lonely poet
joins the society
of the dead
without the chance
to murmur one last
hackneyed metaphor.
-James C. Allen
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 10:28 PM UTC
Vaguely I recalled
something crawling,
clawing its way into
the bed from the bottom
end.
I thought I was dreaming,
until it worked its way
up beside me.
I must have thought
it to be one of the
cats except they
were all dead.
In the morning
I awakened to something
scratching at my shoulder.
I slowly peeled back the
comforter to discover
a small sleeping possum
enjoying the warmth
of my bed.
My blood curdling scream
ushered him out of the room,
and yes, they can move
quickly.
Disappearing into another
of the bedrooms,
he could not be located.
Left with my fear, the indelible
sight of a long grey naked tail
and the inability to locate
the marauder,
I removed a pistol from the
safe, closed the door,
and went back to bed.
The next day after a fruitless search,
one have a heart trap was purchased,
bated with tuna fish.
In the morning, 2 am, wham;
one possum secured in cage.
Come daybreak a fussy but
unharmed possum was released
far from the house. I felt like
an SPCA chairperson. After all,
even possums deserve a second
chance.
-James C. Allen
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
The night is stark
gone blind by the failure
of heaven's bulbs to ignite.
Nothing but a giant cataract
obliging an aperture the experience
of fulfilling the opposite
for which she was designed.
The usual landmarks fail,
as they fall without indication
the horizon has changed
in our sightless minds.
Our fingers braille the air
searching for something
familiar but touch has
followed suit.
We strain to hear,
dependent on sounds
for orientation.
Anxiety ushers fear,
without our senses
it makes no difference
what exists or does not.
The sky is an ornament
without magic to enlighten,
like Christmas with the fuse
blown from the colorful
display.
-James C. Allen
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 9:44 PM UTC