Archive for February, 2016

Dark Side 2

UNIVERSE MUSIC
By David Allen
 
The music of the universe
called to the astronauts
and it scared them.
They were on the dark side of the moon,
which blocked the noises of Earth,
when the whistling began. 

“You hear that?
That whistling sound?
Whoooo!”
One astronaut asked.
“Well, that sure is weird music,”
another answered.
“It sounds so spacey!” 

Cue the X-Files theme. 

The sound lasted for an hour,
then the spacecraft sighted Earth.
The astronauts gave relieved sighs
when the whistling was drowned out
by the multitudinous transmissions from Earth.
The astronauts decided to keep
 the space music to themselves.
No one would have believed them, they reasoned.
And it could jeopardize future missions. 

“Should we tell them about it?”
One asked his fellow spacemen.
“I think we should think about it,”
another answered.
And their story went untold
for more than four decades. 

No one realized the music
was always there.
It was just blocked
by the cacophonous
racket from
Earth.

newspapers

EXILE
by David Allen

It’s tough to live this life
With no deadlines,
No assignments from the desk,
No editors screaming in my ears,
No restaurants to review,
No typhoon, tornado or terrible
Earthquake to document.

No ambulances to chase,
No next of kin to interview,
No one’s story to tell;
Left with my own,
Worried it’s not interesting enough
To keep the reader’s attention.

The tomorrow’s tally up
And the to-do lists become tomes
Of unfinished business,
Unreachable goals.
This is uncharted territory
And I am lost.

Retirement? 
Hell, this is

Exile.

BENNY’S BORN

Posted: February 7, 2016 in Poetry
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Chaos Tour 020

Benjamin David Garza, 12 Oct. 2004

 

BENNY’S BORN
By David Allen

I read the newspaper headlines
early this morning
and wanted to go back to sleep.
My nightmares
are not as crazy
as this waking world.
But then I remembered
my grandson was to be born
this day and, as I dressed
and drove to the hospital,
I despaired.
A cold fog had settled
on the gray Indiana town,
seeming to smother the present,
as my mind clouded
with the news smog
that cloaked the future.
I feared for my grandson.
What kind of weary, warring world
was he inheriting?
However, not much later,
gingerly holding my hour-old
Grandson in my arms,
I saw him smile for what
may have been the very
first time, a sign of pleasure
at the sense of touch.
And, knowing that he had no debts,
no prejudices, no knowledge of religion,
and that hate had yet to find him,
I wondered –
Is there yet hope for us?