Posts Tagged ‘poem’

POEMS FOR dVERSE

Posted: January 19, 2016 in Poetry
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dVerse is a great online poetry group that constantly challenges poets to write better and greater things. Every Tuesday there is a challenge of some sort and this week it’s to write poems in response to poems by your favorite poets. Below I am including two poems I have written in the past inspired by one of my favorite poets, Allen Ginsberg. 

The first is “My Howl,” the second is “America.” It’s easy to Google the originals. Here’s mine:

My Howl
By David Allen

I saw the best pups of my litter
petted, pawed at, pulled
from Mom’s teat too soon.
crammed in cages, placed on view,
prices posted on paper-lined lairs,
dens barely large enough to
turn around in. Sold to strangers,
shampooed, collared, carted away
from cagemates in cars, transported
to new dens ruled by bipeds.
Lonely without litter mates,
we tried to play puppy games.
But our friendly greeting bites
were met with shrill shouts,
“No bite! No bite!”
No bite?
What do they want us to do?
Lie still while the world awaits,
to taste, to smell, to roll in?
Hide our excitement? Be rude?
Passively accept the patting hand,
the petting massage, with
no teeth? To bite the hand
that feeds you is not a crime,
but a compliment. We do not tear at their flesh,
but mouth them, teeth and tongue
become a part of them, forming a We.
Ahh, but bipeds think too slow and
cannot broadcast their thoughts,
or receive, no matter how hard we try to send.
They cannot talk to wind, to leaves, to grass,
to the pack with thoughts.
They bark, but never bite.
What sin did they commit to
have to keep their thoughts to themselves?
Bipeds! Hapless bipeds! You treat my brothers sorely,
You speak with shouts and coos, commands and tempt
us with treats, but we know of Pavlov and
his bells. We trained him. Who was it got to eat?
Bipeds! You can chain us, but never own us.
You can cage our bodies, but our minds run free.
Bipeds! We will shake your hand, come when called,
Chase your balls, catch your Frisbees.
But remember always, it’s our choice
when to obey and when to run.
The wild dog you invited to share
your campfire is within us still.
Bipeds! Hear our growls. Know
you may drive some of us crazy,
you may take the mad ones, the
outcast, abandoned ones away,
cage us together one last time
in death row kennels;
put us to that never waking sleep,
to sleep, perchance to dream, of freedom
that you can never know.
Bipeds! You may force us to
act the fool; dress us as clowns,
make us look ridiculous,
cut our hair in weird designs,
dye our ears, bob our tails, but
you cannot conquer our spirit.
For — I saw the best pups of my litter,
spirit-filled, running free, despite leash and cage.
For we are what you bipeds can never be —
We are dogs!
                                                                         
AMERICA REVISTED
By David Allen

America, I’ve given you all and now I’m something
America, nineteen dollars and twenty seven cents June 27, 2014.
Inflation fried my mind
America, when will we end the Islamic wars?
Go fuck yourself with your drone bombs.
I feel good now, follow me
I write my poems when I’m in my right mind
America, when will you be Humanist?
When will you take off your masks?
When will you look at yourself in the mirror?
When will you be worthy of your pacifists?
America, why are your schools full of fear?
America, when will you feed your poor?
I’m sick of your insanity.
When can I go to the supermarket and buy what I
Need without fear of poison?
America, after all it is you and I who exist now,
Not in some next world.
Your capitalism is destroying us.
You make me want to be Canadian.
There must be some other way to settle this debate.
If I could travel to Japan I don’t think I’d come back.
Are you really serious or is this some kind of reality TV series?
I’m trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my freedom.
America, stop tapping my phone and internet.
America, your poll numbers are falling.
I read the newspapers every day
And every day somebody goes to prison for drug possession
While the mega-thieves on Wall Street get new tax breaks.
America, I feel sentimental about Carter.
America, I read Ayn Rand when I was a kid
I’m now sorry.
If I could, I’d smoke marijuana all the time.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the news on TV.
I stayed at the Roach Motel and never got saved.
My mind is made up, there’s going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Bukowski.
My Muse insists I must write more.
I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer at Al-anon meetings.
I have crazy thoughts that bleed into poetry.
America, I still haven’t told you what you did to our
Soldiers after they came back from Iraq.

……………………………………………………………………………………..

Be sure to visit the dVerse Poets Pub ATT http://dversepoets.com/tag/dverse-poets-pub/

PARACHUTING

Posted: January 1, 2016 in Poetry
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Parachute

PARACHUTING
By David Allen

“It was the thrill of a lifetime
A once in a lifetime experience.”

That was the lede of the story
I wrote about the local sky diving club.
The back story was the advice an editor gave
When I pitched the story to him.
“Sounds great,” he said
“Especially if you jump.”
Sure, I thought. Why not?

All during my interview of the instructor
At the local airport I kept thinking to myself,
“I can always back out.”
So, I learned how to strap the parachute on
And practiced jumping off a four-foot stage
Rolling on my side as I hit the ground.

“I can always stay on the plane,” I thought
As we took off with another student.
“I can just sit here,” I reasoned to myself
When the jumper froze after stepping out,
His left foot on a locked wheel,
The other hanging over open space,
His hands tightly clutching the wing strut.
After a few swats on his backside by the instructor,
He pushed himself away, thinking, perhaps,
That falling to the ground was less embarrassing
Than chickening out at the last minute.

Then it was my turn.
The way I always face a challenge
Is to stop overthinking about the danger;
Just do it, get it over with.
I didn’t hesitate to push away from the plane;
I didn’t panic as I started to tumble over
And almost caught my feet in the parachute lines,
A mistake that could cause the chute not to open fully.
I managed to right myself and enjoyed that fall,
Pleased at the view of the Virginia countryside
Climbing towards me.

I landed on the airport tarmac,
Rolling as I had been taught,
And gathered up the parachute.
I walked toward my photographer,
A huge grin stretched across my face.
“Well, that was fun,” I told him.
“You going to join the club?” he asked.
“Hell ,no,” I answered,
“I’d have to pack my own chute
And I’m not that dexterous.”

 
 

HAPPY HOLIDAZE

Posted: December 12, 2015 in Poetry
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HAPPY HOLIDAZE
By David Allen

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
Hannukah, too, this is my Holiday poem
For you.
 
Let’s remember this December
Other reasons exist
To wish a Festivus for the rest of us,
No matter your bliss.
 
And, speaking of bliss,
This season marks when
Buddha found his.
Now, isn’t that Zen?
 
And shouldn’t we add Saturnalia
To this season’s list?
After all, that old Roman holiday
Was the start of all this.
 
For, one week in December
The Romans gave a big bash
Where everything was permitted,
Like “The Purge,” with thousands cast,
To get drunk, damage property,
Injure strangers and friends
Historians someday will tell us
That’s where “Black Friday” begins.
 
The holiday was so popular
Early Catholics stole the date
To lure pagans to their churches
So they could seal their fate.
 
“But the War on Christmas is upon us,”
The Faux News anchors scream,
But look not only to Humanists
For raising their spleen.
Hardcore Christians, the Puritans
Once took up the torch
To ban Christmas hokum
No day for their church.
 
The reason for the season
To me is just this –
Another year’s over
And we are still here
That’s a reason to party
To throw off our fears
To count all our blessings,
Whatever that’s worth,
Because we haven’t yet
Killed our Mother Earth.

MISTER POLITICIAN

Posted: November 10, 2015 in Poetry
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While watching the Clown debate tonight (Nov. 10) I remembered this song I wrote a few years ago:
  
          MISTER POLITICIAN
          By David Allen

Mr. Politician
I want to tell you
What’s on my mind
All I need is
A few moments of your precious time.

How do you feel
When you hear
All those children crying?
How can you sleep
Knowing there are innocent people dying?

             We want to give you
            All of our trust,
            So please remember
            What you do affects all of us.
 

Mr. Politician
I want to show you
You’re turning blind
All that I need is
A few minutes of your precious time.
 

How can you smile
When you see
Refugees in all those lines?
How can you laugh
When you see
The diseased coughing up their lives?

            We want to give you
            All of our trust
            But you don’t remember
            What you do affects all of us. 
 
Mr. Politician
Would you tell me
What’s on your mind?
All that you need is
A few moments of my precious time.

 How do you love
When you are so
filled with all that burning hate?
Open your heart
It’s a start, before it’s way too late.

             We want to give you
            All of our trust
            But you must remember
            What you do affects all of us.

 Mr. Politician
They want to sell
You some TV time.
And all they need is
A few million dollars and your mind.

 How does it feel
When you hear yourself
And know that you are lying?
And how do you keep
At least one of your two faces from crying?

             We want to give you
            All of our trust
            But we’d fell better
            if you trusted us.
 

DREAMS

Posted: November 6, 2015 in Poetry
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DREAMS
By David Allen

The first dream I remember
was a child’s nightmare.
I was four, maybe five,
and I dreamt I somehow
had crawled through an electrical
wall socket and passed through
to a land of bright, vibrant colors
and eerie cartoon characters
who guided me to a lemonade stand.
I awoke before I could drink the Kool-Ade.

Twenty five years later
I studied how to program
And control my dreams and
embarked on a six-month
re-run of key, important,
character-forming events.
I never interfered with the plot,
but instead approached my
dreamself at the end, shook
his hand and thanked him,
saying, “Now I understand.”
I never went back to those dreams
or repeated the experiment.
I preferred to let them run their course.
It was more fun to float over
the local park late at night,
or drive fast on a winding
mountain road, than to relive
the day I quit the job
at the Styrofoam factory.

Today I still dream randomly,
although some themes repeat –
lost cars, great sex, racing
my car on winding mountain roads.
My dreamself knows it’s all a dream,
but it’s interesting to let them play out,
To see where they go.

Sometimes,
these dreams are
more interesting
than this waking world.
 

AMBASSADOR’S LUNCH

Posted: October 15, 2015 in Poetry
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Ambassador
Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer met with Governor Hirokazu Nakaima, February 2008.

AMBASSADOR’S LUNCH
By David Allen

What’s wrong
with this picture?
The U.S. Ambassador
to Japan is to address
Okinawa business leaders
at a lunch today and
here we are in the press corral
sitting at roped off tables
watching everyone else
eat while we sip our water
and wait for the ambassador
to wipe his lips and
nod in thanks for
the pleasant introduction
from the governor
and spin a speech
about how great
the U.S.-Japan alliance is.
Meanwhile, the press’s unfed
stomachs rumble.
We weren’t fed and
a good free meal
is the major reason I came.

BARNACLES

Posted: October 14, 2015 in Poetry
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BARNACLES
By David Allen

The other night
I looked at a mark
On my wife’s arm
And gave it a scratch.
“Just wondering if it’s like mine,”
I said. “Will it scrape off?
Remember the time you made me
Go to a dermatologist to check out
A mole on my cheek
And he said it was a …..”

I lost the word.
“The doc said it was not cancerous,
That it was just a body…. a body…”
“Barnacle!” my wife shouted.
“A body barnacle.
And I said I always thought
I had married a crusty old sailor.”

But, why couldn’t
I come up with the word?
I’m Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
Who’s that knocking at my door?
It’s Barnacle Bill the Sailor!

Late that night I replayed
The conversation in my mind.
Was the word loss a senior moment?
Maybe a chemo-fog event?
I’d read that years after chemotherapy
Cancer patients sometimes have trouble
With losing words, attention, thoughts.
“No big deal,” a friend said.
But for a writer to lose words?
B… Bar?
Bar what?
It took me a few anxious minutes,
Lying there late at night,
Searching for that one word.
B.. B… uh, Bar
“NICKEL!” the inner voice yelled.
That’s it. Barnacle!

In the morning I tell my wife
About the night’s challenge.
“But, I finally remembered,” I bragged.
“Bah…Bah …Oh, no, it’s gone again.”
“Just scratch the surface,” my muse said.
“It will come back to you.
It’s just stuck in there
Like a barnacle resisting
The scratch.”

BARNACLE!

HEADSTONES

Posted: September 26, 2015 in Poetry
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HEADSTONES
By David Allen

I’m torn on the idea of graveyards.
Oh, I’d roam through them as shortcuts
And use them as playgrounds as a kid;
They were great for hide and seek.
Much later, I thought they were
Fitting reminders of those who came before us;
Some who died in battle,
Testaments to lives, lived and lost.
But for family grave plots?
Maybe for a generation or two
Some relatives or descendants  
Would place flowers, say a prayer,
Or maybe just meditate on memories.
But, what then? As the generations pass
How many headstones are forgotten?
How many graveyards abandoned?

Let me tell you about one.
Headstones were discovered not so long ago
Stacked against a fence in the backyard of a home
In Great Neck, Long Island,
A place settled by Allens in the late 1600s.
On what was then called Madnan’s Neck.
(Mad Nan was an earlier settler
Who struck her family and friends as a bit loopy.)

The headstones were in a small family graveyard
Started sometime by Daniel Allen in the early 1800s.
In 1938, his great-nephew died and left $500
For the upkeep of the cemetery.
The money was never used.
The family moved on,
Spreading throughout Long Island and points west.
The headstones stood alone and lonely
Then a subdivision fenced the cemetery
Into a small triangle between two backyards.
Sometime early this century the headstones were moved
To make room for a new shed and swing set.

News accounts are not clear on how
The headstones were rediscovered.
But studies of old records were made
And a search of the nearby grounds
Unearthed seven crumbling caskets
Forgotten during the busy decades
Since their, no-doubt, well attended funerals.
They were moved to a corner lot
And reclaimed by the town.

It might be interesting to visit one day,
Out of curiosity.
I am torn. I didn’t know the interred;
I heard no family stories about them.
And why should it matter?
Maybe a part of them lies within me
Perhaps that’s the only memorial
That really counts.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

From the Great Neck Record:

Cemetery Project to Move Forward
May 24, 2014

There’s renewed hope that plans for the restoration and preservation of the Allen Cemetery, a 20-foot by 10-foot abandoned property nextled between the backyards of two homes on Pearce Place in Great Neck Plaza can soon move forward. ed property nestled between the backyards of two homes on Pearce Place in Great Neck Plaza can soon move forward. 

The optimism for the project’s completion came from the Town of North Hempstead’s historian Howard Kroplick during his appearance last week as a guest of the Great Neck Historical Society. “We’re going to be meeting with the Great Neck Plaza people, probably, within the next month,” said Kroplick, “and really come up with a plan. We’ve been working with them for about a year-and-a-half.”

“We’ve been working not only with the Plaza but with the Great Neck Historical Society on it, and with the Allen family, too,” he added. “We had to get all of our legal documents together.”

TAKING THE TROUBLE

Posted: September 20, 2015 in Poetry
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TAKING THE TROUBLE
By David Allen

I walked to your
back door last night
and saw two legs standing
where mine might have been.
I panicked, stepped backwards
down the stoop steps,
retreated to the side of the house
and plotted.
Then I knocked on your door.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
You were confused, drunk,
shaken by his visit —
but smiling.
“How are you?” I asked his beard.
“I’m coming from behind my mask,”
he said. “My ass,” I thought.
You said you’d be along
shortly.

I waited through the long night
for your scream
or a slamming door.

TELEPHONE

Posted: September 18, 2015 in Poetry
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TELEPHONE
By David Allen

What
do you
tell a
phone
that it
doesn’t
already
know?

It’s heard
it all
before.
It knows
what rings
true.

It gets
the message.
It knows
what’s
connected
and what’s
off the hook.

So,
what do
you tell
a phone?

Nothing.
don’t trust it,
it’s dropped a dime
on everyone
you know.

It’s tapped
into the
party line
that sometimes
gets crossed
and leaves
you disconnected.

 

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.

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

(more) Cover

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.

AND HERE’S MY FIRST BOOK

Cover

Like my poetry? Then buy my book, “The Story So Far,” published by Writers Ink Press, Long Island, N.Y. You can find it on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Story-So-Far-David-Allen/dp/0925062480/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397184666&sr=1-13&keywords=the+story+so+far) in paperback and Kindle formats, or by sending me $10 at:

David Allen
803 Avalon Lane
Chesterfield, IN 46017

Here’s what Fulbright Poet and former Suffolk County N.Y. Poet Laureate David Axelrod had to say in the book’s preface:

Poets are allowed to make lists to tell us their “Story So Far,” as long as it’s an interesting list. David Allen’s is and thus, so are his poems—a good life that makes a good read. American poets, in other countries, are sometimes chided for taking even little details from their lives and turning them into poetry. That’s a large part of the art that David Allen has mastered—solidly, happily in the American tradition.

Allen is not averse to autobiography, not needing that mask of fiction behind which so many artists hide. Of course that is true in his title poem which catalogs his personal journey. It is most poignant in poems such as “Requiem for My Father,” which recites a litany of pain and in so doing purges the past, leaving a “demon-less Dad.” He writes to atone for the fact that “I Never Wrote a Poem About My Mother,” creating a poem even more powerful because it celebrates a life that was so often bullied into a position of powerlessness.

Allen’s poems are a often a plain song in performance of a homey philosophy. For those who search for god, “In the Country” asks “if god/ is afraid of the dark.” In “No Sense,” we contemplate a god who “is either/ absent minded,/ a practical joker,/ or a sadist.” His “Meaning” is something you can “put…in your pocket…go off whistling/ down the street.”

“Anticipation,” delights us with music “like a cool chill on a steaming/ day of city summer stranger streets.” “Nightmares,” turns philosophy into a song, something Allen may have learned from his father who “plays the mandolin/ when life begins to close him in.” Allen even has moments one could liken to Emily Dickinson, as in “Underneath.”

The Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Louis Simpson, himself inclined to cataloging the oddities of “American Poetry,” has also noted that many poets seem to want to be novelists. Allen himself, in “The Final Chapter,” promises “No more novel, play or poem similes.” Luckily, he contradicts this pronouncement many times in this book. His relaxed lines and narrative tendencies might remind you of “novel.” In truth, he has a professional journalist’s talent for writing good lead lines, a poet’s ear for music and the strong endings of a story writer. Blending forms, he is a poet who more than gives us—he gifts us his life in poetry!

He explains his modus operandi in “Running” noting how writing has been his refuge and salvation even as “book walls crumbled/ and, crippled, I learned to crawl.” Indeed, he’s gone much further than that humble admission in the Story So Far. He puts a well-earned, positive slant on his accomplishments in “Seesaw Sensations,” exclaiming “Ah, so this is living.” Hooray for David Allen’s courage, creativity and poetry!

David B. Axelrod, Fulbright Poet
http://www.poetrydoctor.org

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