Pumpkin Prize By David Allen I’m a bumpkin for pumpkins pies, bread, and pudding, and spice in my coffee on cool Autumn morns. As I drive around town I see them on stoops, stairs, and porches; gutted and carved in Halloween screams. I wonder if any of the gourd artists know the legend of Jack O’Lantern, the Irish drunkard and fast-talking conman who scammed Satan during a drinking game into freeing him from Hades. The centuries-old myth claims Jack didn’t realize the Pearly Gates were also locked for him and, forlorn, he begged Satan to take him back. Satan refused. But, admiring Jack’s evil, presented him an ember to place inside a hollowed-out pumpkin. A pumpkin prize to light Jack’s endless trek through the netherworld.
Posts Tagged ‘poetry’
Pumpkin Prize
Posted: October 18, 2021 in PoetryTags: carved pumpkins, David Allen, Halloween, myth, poetry, pumpkins
The First Leaf By David Allen I am the first leaf to fall, marking the way for my family to follow when the days cool and the trees evict them. Some drop straight down in a suicidal plunge, others find a breeze and swirl away in a last dance. Eventually we blanket the lawn. creating a colorful carpet until we shrivel and surrender to winter's woes.
TOBY TYLER By David Allen “See the elephants, see the clowns, see the county police shut the circus down” An editor once said my story ledes were pure poetry. And I was on a roll in Fort Wayne in 1986. I was responsible for kicking the Toby Tyler Circus out of town. and had tons of fun doing it. The small-time circus was slated to set up its tents in the city’s Coliseum parking lot.. But the penny-pinching pachyderm show had left a path of collapsing bleachers and broken bones in its wake.. “If the circus is coming to town it better stop by an insurance office first,” I chuckled as I wrote.. Citing lack of adequate insurance, the city balked and the one-ring sorry excuse for a great show searched for a new local venue. t finally found a farm lot just north of the city. “There was a bunch of midgets putting up a tent in my backyard,” a bewildered man who rented a house on the property said. The lot owner neglected to tell him the circus was coming. About 150 spectators saw the opening act before police closed the circus down. It left town that night So, yeah, I killed the circus, And all the clowns, elephants, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my! NOTE: This one of three of my poems included in The Last Stanza Poetry Journal (6). It's a great quarterly anthology. Get your copy from Amazon.
Remembering
Posted: September 30, 2021 in PoetryTags: David Allen, elephant in the room, poetry, reporting
REMEMBERING By David Allen For decades I was the elephant in the room, jotting down what I saw and heard when I attended trials and responded to wrecks, fires, murders and mayhem.. I typed up what I saw and heard and editors splashed the stories across newspaper pages. We were the community’s memory. I spent 20 years reporting in the Far East. On the fiftieth anniversary of the War in the Pacific I interviewed scores of veterans, sharing their memories of those harrowing, island-hopping days. A decade ago I retired from newspapers and threw myself into poetry, remembering in verse all I experienced in a life full of words. NOTE: This is one of three poems of mine featured In the new issue of The Last Stanza Poetry Journal (Issue six). It's an excellent magazine. Get it at Amazon.com.
RIDING THE ELEPHANT
By David Allen
Thailand’s Sin City glowed at night,
neon signs lit Pattaya’s streets packed
with American sailors and Marines
who jostled European tourists seeking
drugs, booze and unbridled sex.
I was there to report on
joint military maneuvers,
but was struck silly
by the maneuvers of
the "Buy-Me-Drinky”' gals
dressed in schoolgirl uniforms,
plaid skirts and light blue blouses.
They performed bumps and grinds
in club doorways, promising wild sex.
Scantily clad waitresses in the hotel lobby
knelt next to my chair, gingerly holding
cups to my lips as I sipped my drinks.
Outside, the streets sported cocktail bus-pubs,
and older prostitutes called from darkened doorways,
that hid their age-warped bodies, selling themselves
for a few Thai bahts or Yankee bucks.
I spent most of my time in my hotel room
writing about how the day’s exercise went,
sending the story to my editors in Tokyo,
calling my wife a half ocean away,
and fending off a hallway hostess
who wanted to give me an hour of
"the best ever sexual deep massage."
In the hotel restaurant I saw
a family with two children
and asked my interpreter
where they would go for fun.
Besides a few religious shrines,
where would a tourist in
Sin City take a child?
Even the beautiful beaches
swarmed with sex.
He laughed and drove me to a zoo
where children perched on baby elephants
that were led around a small circular track.
He was taken aback when I asked
if I could scramble atop one and go for a ride.
I didn’t care about seeming silly and laughed
as I climbed up on Dumbo for what was
the highpoint of my trip to Thailand’s
version of Sodom and Gomorrah
NOTE: This is one of three poems of mine in the new Last Stanza Poetry Journal (Vol 6). Be sure to order from Amazon.
My Son, the Survivor
Posted: August 6, 2021 in PoetryTags: coma, David Allen, Okinawa, poetry, survival, trauma
Today is my youngest son’s 37th birthday. A couple of years ago he went into a coma after an old friend gave him a “kill shot” with the intent to rob him. We didn’t know if he’d survive a week, let alone recover. He has since married and moved on, still suffering from short-term memory and other symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. But he’s keeping on keeping on! Here are poems we wrote about his bad trip. I CAN’T SLEEP By David Allen I can’t sleep while my son sleeps this troubled sleep. A seizure slapped his skull with a wash of blood that squeezed his brain and forced the sleep with eyes rolled up and shaking limbs. A tube plunged down his throat helps him breathe, while one in his skull drains the invading blood. And we caress him and hold his hands and give assurances of undying love, as he sleeps the drug-induced sleep from which we were told might never end. I can’t sleep while my son sleeps what well might be the final dream about what may or may not come next. I WAS ASLEEP By Matthew Allen I was asleep for two weeks. Then I woke up relearning how to speak, walking on legs that were already weak. I asked if the hemorrhage was from the tweak. Yup The tweak exploded a vein in my brain causing a blood clot, killin’ parts of the gray matter that controlled movement on my left side, my speech, and short term memory. It was a little like blowin’ a head gasket or having a water pipe burst and flood the basement. I’ll tell you about it, but, don’t ask me too much. I don’t know why my “friends ” gave me what the cops called a “kill shot” to knock me out and steal stuff from my Dad’s house. The docs are telling me my memory May not ever be the same, But I know one thing --I’m still fightin’ and will get better While those “friends” rot in prison.
Matt and his wife Heather
Wanderlust
Posted: September 1, 2020 in PoetryTags: exploring, juvenile, poetry, searching, Wandering
WANDERLUST By David Allen It's a wonder my parents didn’t get in trouble for letting me run free. From as far back as I remember, I did things that could have brought charges of child neglect for allowing me to run wild. I am the oldest of seven children and gladly surrendered the role of mother's little helper to my sister, two years younger, while I discovered the world. Trespassing was my usual crime. Abandoned homes, factories, military bases, and the estates of Roaring Twenties millionaires, decayed after the Depression. They were my playground. I never knew what I might find Signs of a ghost? Old books, photos? Remains of animals? Forgotten paintings? Broken statues? Stairways to the sky? I once found the blackened remainder of a forgotten pie in an old wood oven. In a mildewed closet, I discovered a half-filled diary that ended with a huge hand-drawn exclamation point. In a flooded factory basement I used a wooden door as a raft. I was lucky no one ever confronted me as I sought what remained when life moved on to other structures and other worlds.
The Light’s Gone out (again)
Posted: June 5, 2020 in PoetryTags: liberty, poetry, protest, violence
The Light’s Gone Out (again)
By David Allen
It’s getting darker in America
We have somehow lost the dawn
We move slowly as the light dims
And wonder what went wrong
Lady Liberty’s torch is out
It no longer lights the way
We choke on the wisps of smoke
As we face darker days.
Fear and hate now rule the land
It’s the opposite of our dawn
When we welcomed the huddled mass
Escaping foreign wrongs.
But now we limit travel
Because of a viral threat
And watch on TV the horror
Of a black man kneed to death.
As we take to the streets to protest
Our mad leader makes it known
He’ll use all the means at his disposal
To ensure the Dove of Peace has flown.
We’re living in a land divided
By race, religion, and much more
Left and Right poles further splitting
In a mad rush to settle scores.
It’s the opposite of dawn
This nightmare land of fear
And when we’ll see the sun again
Isn’t very clear.
GREEN
By David Allen
Within a week
the world turned green
outside my humble home.
Branches that bore
tiny green shoots
now bend with the weight
of broad oak leaves.
The woods are alive
with chatterings and coos.
But the leaves hide
the high aerie roosts
and the busy birds
tending their broods.