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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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