Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
MISPLACED FEAR
Posted: October 27, 2014 in PoetryTags: David Allen, Ebola, fear, needlessly, poetry, scared
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SCARED
Posted: October 25, 2014 in PoetryTags: David Allen, explaining, Halloween, horror, poetry, pumpkins, scared, spiders, terror
SCARED
By David Allen
Want to know what scares me?
Running out of ink when inspiration strikes
Blank paper
Complaining to my wife when she’s off her meds
Being stranded in a doctor’s examination room
Buying gas on the weekend
Forgetting birthdays
Having a birthday
Running out of crossword puzzles in the bathroom
Running out of toilet paper
Getting a phone call from my bank
Getting late night phones call from my children
Going with my wife to a church rummage sale
Stepping on a scale
Looking in a mirror first thing in the morning
Looking at my hair after a nap
Being late for anything
Forgetting a word
Forgetting someone’s name
Balancing my checkbook
Not having a deadline
Shopping for groceries
Winter
Credit scores
Visiting a trailer park during a tornado watch
My wife asking me if new pants make her look fat
Having to run away
My cable TV bill
My cell phone bill
Finding hair on my brush
Pizza from Pizza King
Brussels sprouts
Fruitcakes
Cabbage
A plain bagel
Pea soup
Vegetarians
Highway rotaries
Barber shops
My wife’s silence when I create a pun
My wife’s silence when I crack a joke
My wife’s silence
Silence from the voice in my head
Silence
Lawyers
Doctors
Politicians
Preachers
Armed Teabaggers
Donald Trump’s hair
Insurance salesmen
Anderson, Indiana
V-neck sweaters
Swimming without a shirt
Radical Muslims
Radical Christians
Radical Jews
Radical Hindus
Radical Atheists
Running out of chocolate
Empty bookcases
My garage
My wife’s shoe closet
Riding in a car as a passenger
Funeral parlors
Walmart
GPS voices
Bagpipes
Prescription drug commercials
Emus
Guam’s kamikaze crows
Palm readers
Psychics
Fortune cookies
Goodbyes
Explaining the meaning of my poems
THE FOREVER WAR
Posted: October 21, 2014 in PoetryTags: anvil, David Allen, New Years, Okinawa, ome, peace, plowshares, poetry, swords, wars
Sunset, Okinawa Japan , Dec. 31, 1999.
THE FOREVER WAR
By David Allen
At the turn of the century
my love and I watched the sun set
one last time and marveled
at the cloud formation that
appeared as a giant anvil.
I wondered then if it was a sign
announcing the last century’s swords
were to be beaten into plowshares,
greeting an age of peace.
Now, some 15 years later,
I know the answer.
The anvil was to shape
even more swords
for what is becoming
a century of endless conflict.
My second book of poetry, “(more)’ is now available on Amazon Kindle. The paperback edition is also available. If you want a signed copy, email me at david@davidallen.nu. Order your copy today! I am like most poets — poor.
LAST STANZA STORIES
Posted: October 18, 2014 in PoetryTags: David Allen, Last Stanza, memories, poetry, poetry challenge, poets, stories
STORIES
By David Allen
Sharing stories with poet friends
Topics taken by rolls of the dice
(If you didn’t like the first, you got to roll twice.)
Some tales met with gasps, others with grins.
Pat witnessed an alien craft
Light up the Midwest night sky
Later suspecting meteor reports were lies.
Joyce’s dad lost a finger to a circular saw
Judy saw a red pirate ship sitting offshore.
Tom delivered meals on Thanksgiving Day
Jenny almost died from morphine taken to chase pain away.
Cathy’s first kiss from a slobbering boy
Put an end to thinking love would be a joy.
Linda’s college rooms were painted wild colors
Turquoise, blue, and green walls clashed with each other.
Judy’s big night pout was a Nutcracker affair
Jenny’s drug store sold liquor and comic book fare.
Joyce remembered a drunk knocking down all the pins
Pat shoveled walks and cut grass to fill his book bins.
Judy’s dry cleaner’s hot air beckoned the bees
Jenny’s waitress job made her toes bleed.
Jenny’s brother cut down a tree, pocketing Christmas money
Pat brought a man purse from Europe and people looked at him funny.
Cathy’s band placed first in the entire state
But bringing up the rear was the majorettes’ fate.
Linda’s favorite item at the Indy drug store
Was raspberry sherbert, she always wanted more.
Pat’s dad found huge wooden type to declare JFK was dead
Cathy’s practical joke was to season sweet potato doughnuts with pepper instead.
Tom partied and danced at a Grateful Dead concert
Where a pretty girl yakked despite the “Shut Up and Dance” shirt.
Joyce shyly sand in her church choir
Pat’s art class dance set a teacher on fire.
Linda thought being banned from her daughter’s medical exam was jive
Cathy remembered a family split when she was just five.
And me, I told several stories from my wayward life
Cross country driving, divorcing my wife,
Jumping from a plane for a story, but missing the shot
VW broke down outside Barstow, the desert was too hot.
(NOTE: This was a poem challenge for the Last Stanza Poetry Association)
THE WAITING
Posted: October 15, 2014 in PoetryTags: appointments, bones, David Allen, doctors, health, MRI, office visits, ortho doc, pain, patients, poetry, waiting
THE WAITING
By David Allen
Waiting 15 Minutes
This time it’s waiting
For the ortho doc
To tell me the MRI shows
What I already know.
And there’s not much
That can be done.
So, why am I here?
He has the power of the pills
That I will swill when the pain
Becomes too much to bear.
So, here I sit and contemplate.
What pain reliever this time
Will be my fate?
Waiting 20 Minutes
Waiting in the examination room
For 20 minutes reminds me
Of days covering boring trials
When I was a newspaper reporter.
I wrote poems to while the time away.
The poems are coming!
The poems are coming!
So what if the doc is taking his time?
My brain is full of ink.
Waiting 25 minutes
It’s amazing how I have
Absolutely no pain now that
I am waiting for the ortho doc
To come and tell me
What bad shape I’m in.
Waiting 30 minutes
Does anyone know
I am here?
It’s been 30 minutes
And I fear
The ortho doc
Is on an extended
Coffee break
And his staff
Mistakenly filed
My chart away.
Waiting 35 minutes
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
I am.
It’s been 35 minutes
Since the nice nurse
Said you’d be right with me.
This is not right
With me.
Waiting 40 minutes
There’s the sound of laughter
In the hallway outside this room.
Does it mean the ortho doc
Will soon appear?
Is there something in my chart
Amusing him?
Is this terrible waiting
Some initiation prank
For the new patient?
Must not be.
I hear the footsteps
Fading away.
So, I wait.
Waiting 45 minutes
Well, that was quick.
After 45 minutes of waiting
The ortho doc spent 7 minutes
Showing me the MRI pictures
And explaining how bad
My spine was screwed up,
And that I need to see a neurosurgeon
Who will stick needles in me
To assess what to do next.
I await in dulled
Expectation.
(more) on KINDLE
Posted: October 13, 2014 in PoetryTags: (more), Amazon, book, David Allen, Kindle, poetry, promotional rate
My second book of poetry, “(more)” is now available on Amazon Kindle with a special 99 cent introductory offer. Buy now before the price goes up! The paperback edition is also available. Hell, I’ll even send you a signed copy for just $15 if you just message me at david@davidallen.nu.
Here’s a review:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wanting (more), September 2, 2014
By Jenny A. Kalahar “the_story_shop” (Elwood, IN USA)
Here are wonderful, literate poems of longing, wit, wisdom and resistance; justice, injustice, the absurdities of life and of growing older. There are lines full of sensuality at every stage of our existence, and of the waste and usefulness around us. Tinged with the atmosphere of the Orient, they are as luxurious as legs that go all the way up. Mr. Allen’s years as a newspaper man stain his poems with a rougher ink that sticks to your fingers long after you’ve turned his pages. There are losses – parents, loved ones, friends – but there are poems of finding and creating. Children, grandchildren, lovers, partners in crime and art all swirl throughout this collection, humming like a secret humming song. But unlike most hummed songs, these words do matter. They do. So read them now and sing along.
THE BIG BLACK HAIRY SPIDER
Posted: October 6, 2014 in PoetryTags: art, banana spider, David Allen, Okinawa, poetry, spider, traps, typhoon, weather, webs
THE BIG BLACK HAIRY SPIDER
By David Allen
The big black hairy spider
Crawled up the water spout
Then she jumped up to a tree limb
Spinning her silk thread out
And before the day was over
Her silver cobweb was done
And the flies and other insects
Were caught in the web she spun.
But the spiders’ work of art
Are more than insect traps
Okinawans say banana spiders
Can the weather forecast
Giant cobwebs spun low
Mean typhoon winds will blow
And the silken strands spun high
Foretell calm and clear blue skies.
My second book of poetry, “(more)’ is now available on Amazon Kindle. The paperback edition should be available in two weeks. Order your copy today!
http://www.amazon.com/more-David-Allen-ebook/dp/B00N6W3DP8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=1-2&keywords=%28more%29+by+David+Allen
WHAT IS FREEDOM
Posted: October 2, 2014 in PoetryTags: America, David Allen, freedom, government suppression, personal freedom, poetry, security, spying
WHAT IS FREEDOM?
By David Allen
Freedom
Now, there’s a word abused,
Misunderstood and misused
By the Far Left, the Far Right,
The loose cannons, the uptight,
The free spirits, the lost souls,
The imprisoned, the paroled,
The enlightened, the dimwitted,
Those without, those with it,
During July 4th fireworks
The patriotic jerks
Use the word without thought
“Support those who fought
For our freedom!” they scream
But no war in decades, it seems,
Was fought to preserve
Their Freedomland dreams.
Yes, we’re the Cops of the World
And as that freedom word’s hurled,
As we awesomely attack,
I am taken aback.
Are we bringing them democracy,
Or some new tyrant’s monstrosity?
Are we trading our children for oil,
Sending them to die on foreign soil,
While the rich pad their bank accounts
And our Middle Class fails to surmount
The inflated hills of credit card bills?
Freedom, yeah I wish I was free
From phone taps and cameras that shadow me,
From the x-rays and pat downs at airline gates,
From small-minded leaders preaching hate.
They say, “Freedom’s not free,” and that’s no lie,
It cost all of us much, the price is high.
You see, the freedom we have in the USA
Costs the freedom we’re willing to give away.
If you liked this, buy my new book: http://www.amazon.com/more-David-Allen-ebook/dp/B00N6W3DP8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412297998&sr=8-1&keywords=%28more%29+David+Allen.
For signed copies, contact me at david@davidallen.nu
BIRD NEST
Posted: September 28, 2014 in PoetryTags: afterlife, bird nest, David Allen, judging, morally, od, poem, right
BIRD NEST
By David Allen
I gave my love a
bird’s nest that I
found while mowing
the yard and she
marveled and cooed,
“It must have been built
by a mourning dove.”
She examined it carefully,
noting a toothpick
was embedded in the
twigs and short grass.
Later, I read her a new poem.
She listened patiently and frowned.
“But you don’t believe in God.
How can you write about the Pearly Gates?”
I tried to explain, but it’s difficult when
I don’t even know where the words come from.
And, anyway, I never said I didn’t
believe in a god or some afterlife.
I just believe it doesn’t matter.
What will happen will happen.
We shouldn’t live good lives just
In case there is some kind of super
Being on the other side judging us.
Living morally is the just way the way to be.
You don’t do good so you’ll get a reward.
You do it because it’s right.
I should have quit
with the bird nest.
She understood that.
My second book of poetry, “(more)’ is now available in Kindle and paperback editions. Order your copy today!
KINDLE:
PAPERBACK:
THROUGH A SCANNER DARKLY
Posted: September 21, 2014 in PoetryTags: Bone scans, David Allen, dreams, journalism, newspapers, newsrooms, reporting, RIFs
THROUGH A SCANNER DARKLY
By David Allen
My aching bones
brought me to this
nuclear medicine lab
where a smiling nurse
filled me with a radioactive
soup that made my bones glow
for the scanner.
Lying flat on my back,
hands over my head,
the lab light darkened
as the huge metal machine
rolled over my body,
two inches above my nose,
and took pictures of my bones
as I quickly fell asleep
(it’s a talent I have).
Soon, I was in a Midwest newsroom
where I spent some eight years
as the ace crime reporter,
listening to some management geek
explain that the news staff
was to be reduced by four reporters.
A RIF, he called it, as if reduction in force
was more polite than just saying,
“Get the fuck outta here.”
I enviously eyed the computer
that sat on a small rolling table
I shared with the reporter
at the next cubicle.
I was hoping the firings would
free up some space, so I could have
the computer all to myself,
and maybe moved my pile of clips
and news releases and other paperwork
to his desk.
I was beginning to enjoy that thought
when I heard my name called.
“Allen,” the pretentious prick
of an executive editor said. “You’re lucky
we don’t kick your sorry ass outta here!
Maybe next time,” he laughed.
and the sycophants laughed along with him.
But I knew I was safe.
I knew where all the bodies were buried
and no no one else had the sources I had.
I looked around the newsroom,
smiled and wondered which one
of the faces I was gawking at
wouldn’t be there tomorrow.
I was about to start making my guesses
when I heard a faint beep
and a voice over my shoulder said,
“All right, Mr. Allen, we’re done.”
“Well, I’m not,” I thought.
But I had already opened my eyes
Man, that old newsroom was
twenty-four years in the past,
and that scene never happened.
Why’d I dream that up?
You know, you never know
why something pops up in a dream,
no matter what the dream studies say.
A car turns into a train with no
effect on the plot; sex with a beautiful woman
suddenly becomes a fight with a bear;
you lose your car in the parking lot
only to find it parked on the roof, ready to
fly you off to a new adventure.
Dreamscapes just happen.
Just like how my bones
All of a sudden, I seems,
Have just started aching with age.
My second book of poetry, “(more)’ is now available in Kindle and paperback editions. Order your copy today!
KINDLE:
PAPERBACK:
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