seasons...

it was too long ago to forget…
too soon to remember…
the filters remain imperfect…yet.
recollection adheres like ivy to
the mind screen as we sink
again and again into
the abyss of memory…
a baptism of pain and severance…
remember my voice…remember the love,
the loss, the needless journey backwards,
shoeless on hot cement…
bleeding, still overcome by the hot smell of tar,
of rain standing too long in ditches
too deep to drain…
dresses too long, hair wild and curly in the
parched wind…
we were one, then, and we found
ways to deal with what
we could not understand…
there were fantasies then…
long hours in tall fields of corn
where we were victors…
time was ours alone…time was always ahead
as we scampered through cool cemeteries,
hot country roads in the july heat…
but in the fall, social autumns of reds and oranges
under moonlight and along granite corridors
i found another calling and he was mine…
you should have let me go
instead of being afraid of losing…
the struggle has left us imprisoned with
a lifetime of futility…

seasons...soliloquies
ja allen

knights in white satin...

in the beginning, my love, there was time…
now, even that is lost
with the trunks and loose baggage…
there was no way to stop the flight,
even as we waited, our noses, our lips pressed
against the breathless panes of glass…
looking out the door, waiting for our turn
on the intricate web of steel…

we only guessed at what waited;
if we knew then what we know now,
how much would we have wasted becoming strangers?
side-stepping each other
to get out of the way of the greatness we saw
as our destiny, we ruled
our own worlds…
we saw even then the poison we
fed each other…it was love and it
drained us without a sigh or a move…
because we knew better…

yes, my love, we were wise to kill it
before it turned on us…
and now we can learn, can’t we,
to live with the regret
of never knowing the touch of hands,
the passion that would have
been our undoing…
so that now we die, slowly and
forever…

knights in white satin

soliloquies...
ja allen

all along the watchtower...

i watch
the curtains ebb and flow as the fan
pushes them…
fixing on a sliver of illumination
as the silver blade refracts the light
clicking gently after each rotation…

I am caught, a thief, captured in the moment
of confession, oblique yet pointed,
lying on my back, spinning…
arms pinned…black and blue…
with doubt and desecration,
looking up, looking out at you
sitting on the edge of my bed, waiting…
as you uncover my scriptures, knowing
I will never touch you—
never allow you to feel closure.

you are not my child—you
are only a lover i might have known
in another life…
gentle, tender, trusting…
you are regret and longing…
as i sense your desire
my heart aches—my soul rips...
at what is lost and never known…
forever denied inside this tortured room
where we pace and never meet…

where the weight of your expectation
sinks us both…
for pure love is not enough…
it can never be ethereal – it must be felt
and embraced and held,
kissed until the mind evaporates,
replaced by sensation…and sexual fulfillment.

four walls close around me,
as the minutes tick away and the song reminds
me that it is over…
the lie exposed and truth revealed
and as you stand and move away…
your back to me now…i am reminded
of the promise i made to you…
now undone and broken…

all along the watchtower
ja allen

vision...

vacant eyes, left to stare beyond
porcelain walls into exquisite absence,
invert memory’s blueprints…
tomorrow suffocates, choked by yesterday’s
unforgiven agony. today never makes it safely
out of the womb…
were the sweet granules on your tongue
the beginning of understanding
or the last taste of deserted will?
who will carry the vision forward, now?

i keep hoping the dried eyes will weep
as they shrink with each inflection of denial.
yesterday’s warning died on parched lips,
charred meaningless inside the corner
of the mind you burned with deliberate malice…
the answer pointed at my heart
pierced my soul, instead. i cannot handle the truth
or dig through innuendo…

i prefer the mirror shattered in anger,
the myriad eyes in spider-webbed refraction…
such penetration, so much wisdom…
until the sun sets and there is
no one left to see…


vision...soliloquies
ja allen

rejection...

i hide here,
afraid to love,
and be seen…
intentions bent and
maligned by tongues of this shrew vision…
no clues
to the person behind the fine words…
love you?
love you, no!
letters lined on the paper
read like obscenity…
give you that much?
better to rest in indifference,
bested by a rude hate,
a staggering, self-defeating sterile wall…
yet, not loving you is
is the hardest task i have under taken
in my Aegean arena…
it is like breasting death,
like breathing with an iron lung
through bitter teeth…
you push at me even in my dreams,
my head stuffed into my vacuum soul…
push away in dread,
my bed…i lie in it and stare at this
unearthly emptiness,
a scar in my memory…
pretty boy,
soft as your words,
worn by your understanding,
adrift forever denied…

rejection...soliloquies
ja allen

drifting off...

here in the darkness beyond the edge
of my queen-sized bed,
it waits to come to me again;
it appears, disguised;
but the smell of fear is identical,
as the smoke rings hang above,
lying flat on my back…
i rob the vagueness by transforming
it into love, into hate, into some
definable abridgement;
i roll it between my fingers,
around my mind,
counting time…it robs me of peace….
of rest…i embrace it,
press it deep into my psyche,
long for it until i can
want no more…but it remains
clouded, unrealized,
always present…

it pushes me away, crowding me into a
narrow room where i meet
her, moving, pacing…circling;
she is the one who
torments me, who stirs dream sediments,
clouding my sub conscious
with inky, half-realized images…

but she is only another abstract,
a means to define this divergence…
my smoke fills the room…the clock ticks
unmercifully…eternally,
reminding me at last that nothing
waits for me…

drifting off
ja allen

loss...

there was the fear of being unloved
long before the fear of being unheard…
i could define the first in early days
when the sun set regularly and
rose each morning with certainty…
i waited for the amber glow of sweetness
gazing longingly down the path where he
must ascend, searching for me…
for love is liquid and sweet,
to be imbibed in small doses from careful crystal…
touching lips and rolling gently over tongues…
like celluloid images rolling over and over
tailoring glory to those anointed…

when love finally arrived, i drank it deep…
foolishly, long and slow;
i bathed in it and let the golden blood
flood over me…
it touched me, grabbed hold and shook me to my soul;
monstrous, it shattered…
ambitious, it ground everything down;
it crushed my ego and deflated promise;
it grew ugly with unattended rage…
because i was not deserving;
i could not sustain it…
now, absence fills my horizon

i have words today
that no one can hear…
they are silent—buried beneath layers of reflection
and years of disappointment…
my fears have congealed, one to the other
like broken wings to wooden splints,
rubbing the weakness raw
until the pain makes me silent
and unloved….

loss...soliloquies

ja allen

tiny dancer...

in the dark hours between
sleep and dreams,
the anxiety unfolds
wrapping itself around me,
caressing me while promising no escape…
in the cavern where regret
grows monstrous and disappointment
annihilates will,
the well of tears almost spill
down my cheeks…
my uneven breaths choke me,
my eyelids tight
against the light, knowing with age
the world shrinks…
the broad vistas of promise tighten
until, like the ballerina,
i stand on one toe in the back
of the closet…
realizing even sleep offers no relief
from cramps…


tiny dancer...soliloquies
ja allen

forgiveness...

i reach down for understanding…
wondering if i can
corner my corruption within this ringing
rhythm of accusation
rolling over me in waves…

i inch across the icy surface,
trembling, uncertain…
staring into the startled reflected eyes
whose frozen tears shimmer like scars…
drawing me beneath the surface…

but then you are there extending your arms,
daring to pull me up
and into your universal embrace
and i cannot move afraid if you
take one more step toward me you will fall
through the tepid ice…

the danger…is so close…
there are angles and turns too twisted
that surge inward and trap souls mid flight…
my silent scream echoes,
begging for forgiveness for the blatant gestures
of longing you intercept from me…

how can i explain their origin and its dead target…
you who stir the ashes from time to time
in conversations we weave without
conscious effort…
you who remind me of life and love and longing,
like breathing and waking…
you with large steps and huge leaps
and the undaunted courage of youth…
who measures in miles while i in inches,
clutching the edge and
clinging to cold compulsion…

I inhabit the transient ebb and flow,
riding currents of unearthed emotion,
of anger and frustration at
experiencing interaction with someone
who is not a shadow of memory or a
ghost of longing…

forgiveness…
ja allen

mirror...

you are my last illusion…
my final glance backward
through eyes which once held my own,
briefly, reflecting longing,
and fear—regret.

i remember the posture well,
practiced and mean…
that held us for one breath,
then blew us to corners we shared…
the tingle was from relief,
not passion…
we separated and spent our youth
growing difficult and empty…

deposited in a world that left us
bent, alone and unrealized…
where love was abstract, idealized
and never tested…
we danced alone…

my mind which sprays words on the wind,
offers nothing now—not even hope…
yet in the mirrored glow of memory,
i seek solace, underlined softness…
trembling, I forget my limitations,
and claw at the content…

but the words are too tainted to trust,
too ancient for meaning,
too sterile to grow…
inside the anger there is
nothing but dust
and resignation…


mirror...soliloquies
ja allen

creation...

in one calculated breath, you have stolen all
my carefully gathered air
and spewed it on the unhealthy fire i hoped
to suffocate.
flames lick at the dulled surface of my eyes
as you magnify unwieldy tongues,
leaping, trying to escape the heat of your
undisciplined energy…
you fan truth with inverted images;
the rush of air as you pass
bends the fire toward your heels.
but you cannot move logically and flames
destroy each other in confused pyromania…

i remain on my back looking up at the stars,
blinking indifferently—not following the obvious,
noting patterns of futile attempts to light the sky
with meaning and proportion.
my feet are hot
and i long for white isolation in cold sheets;
toes of your logic dig like ice picks into my skull,
prickling sensation to lifeless extremities…
your styrofoam words melt as anger blankets silence…
smoky protests fill my head and i cough before
i remember the damage.

i have lost my lungs living in this uncapped vacuum,
the iron walls my life now…
until you shatter my blanks with hatchets of contempt
and back-handed defiance.
the walls of your flesh expand as you draw in what’s left,
preparing to explode the flames and my indifference.
i turn aside to strangle ashy desire
before i lose to the andiron…
you tossed the liberated fire at my feet
as you rejoice in limbed ecstasy…

i glide unperceived back into silence
where i am destined to rule like the plump moon
in yellowed magnetism,
drawing power from the half-lit pump
pushing me in and out…
i watch the futile flames consume you…
you could never resist your own fire or
the watered mind i offered you…
i see you curl and wither amazed by your own power,
knowing i have drawn the last gasp of your inky reason…

shadows melt into final shades of gray,
rising and falling toward the stars,
buffeted by strong head winds…
they may incorporate your ashes into Orion
where you’d fit logically into the heel of his boot
along with other dog-eared legends…


creation...soliloquies
ja allen

repetition...

you try to give me what is most precious to you;
i try to accept it without the gift knot strangling me.
my packages are broken with over handling.
your virgin bursts of energy unnerve my heavy hand
and i fall into the pattern, unwilling, hoping
to escape one more time…

the days beckoning me are behind;
yours are ahead, child of the morning.
how did we find each other on this icy slope?

of all people, i do not deserve this cold isolation…
the evening lifts its skirts to show the
night’s repast, frozen here…
and i am hungry, starving to step out into it
where you are arraigned in hazy blue smoke…

but i do not dare…i may not return.
the security of the past promises no further
hurt; no new corners to bend to, no new winds
to blow my hair into my eyes…

the ancient pain is bearable…i have lived with it
long enough to experience the rationale
that binds me to it…
if i give it up…for you…and the hint
of hope you extend….

what new griefs, unbearable shocks, will you
give to me in the tight fists of love
you hold out? you lifted me from the slope,
set me on my feet.
will you carry me to the summit?
Is there peace there, as you promised?

repetition
ja allen

poet...

i have swept the virgin aside
and slept fulfilled in the arms
of a madman who thought i was his mother,
his sister—no matter;
we are only labels; the passions which
unearth our mortality only
forms of ancient possession…
i have loved idealism formed
in this mad child of mine,
conceived clinically in gray vaults
of my mind;
i have witnessed his transformation
into insanity, into passion, into sadism;
if we love these children of ours,
creation would end;
we create ourselves again and again
against the nightmare of despair…


poet...soliloquies
ja allen

cannibal...

at the end of the day…
i await you, on the bowl’s edge;
it is full of gravy, meat,
simmered unmercifully.
i marvel it took so long
to become consumable…

you tell me patiently that i have no substance,
all gristle and pain; nauseatingly raw…
but you have eaten worse—all fat,
all bone—seemingly fleshy
morsels, looking, looking; while
i waited.

now i suppose you wish a proper setting—
linen, silver?
i stewed them, too…with flour,
salt and the recipe you so
thoughtfully added as a prelude…

you encouraged monstrosity in the child,
a freakish, frightened, malformed offspring;
now that it is conceived, how am i to live?
it infects the air i breathe
with hellish shrieks of pampered resistance…

it boils, festers and eats my rationale;
pull up a chair;
i have served it up well—
done--but not overcooked…
there are a few lumps no matter how hard i stir…
but the ice water will help you
swallow it…


cannibal...soliloquies
ja allen

violation...

a headlight flash,
a fist upon the knob,
a door reverberates…
releasing echoes of brass chains,
carefully woven days of secret promise
curl with slow flames in the walls,
smoking out hungry hours like spiders
to wrap the trapped fly who shed her wet
wings favoring silk cocoons….

the ax has not forgotten
in the shed behind the house;
it chops dead wood, by inches,
then feet…an arch and flash
of deadly edges, ever faster,
fed by the assurity of an end;
the frame is consumed by limits
of the steel head,
the heaves and grunts splinter
retaining walls;

inside, animals chew
the vital tapestry,
stirred by unsilence,
with no respect for waiting, for certainty…
the ashen hands flutter in
unaccustomed white, unable to grasp
scattered reflections…
unnatural images distorted by glaring rays,
broken on uneven surfaces…

unable to block the inevitable threads of silver
light bordering on insatiable darkness within…
the mucilage stretches only so far,
not far enough for the hands behind the ax.
battered, the door falls,
no ear, no eye, it is eaten from within.
legs scurry to the corner, begging to be forgotten…
the black pulp of madness has been split,
severed from frantic time,
the ax does not forgive the center,
frugal dwelling in recessed light…
the barren dust beneath the bed has
bred time to steel…
there is no escaping into eternity…

violation...soliloquies
ja allen

artiste...

i take your stark pistol gray dawns
and tinge them with pink
i light miniature candles to provide a glow
inside the darkness of your lust…

we live in a wilderness too vast to conquer,
your boot prints up my spine
keep me alive and fighting…
your love rips the first hole in the sky
where i fix my gaze waiting for tomorrow…

your eyes infuse storms with realism;
the point of your stare always
pulls me to the edge of whatever room i hold
if there is a need for beauty,
i create it to oppose you.
when we step back into ourselves and pause
like clock hands without the power to move,
i have willed it…
beyond the fence
where we have set our own boundaries,
there is a purer love,
without suspicion, without fear…

but it is beyond me to go there.
i have no will to climb fences or to embark on idealism’s path
i wait for your leaded eye to reflect
the transformation of gullies into serene pools…


artiste...soliloquies
ja allen

prayer...

rapid shutters roll…
staccato march on the flatland
stilled as careless mouths ingest a corruption…
accusations in gray waves roll over and over…
miscegenation of colds, of hots
breeding unbearable off spring that bite and gnash
tearing delicate tissues…
as hunger propels the meandering herd…
they rip the practiced posture with a jagged, careless tear…

i must slow the light…
cannot the world conceive me?
i heed the knotted
rope, elusive but eternal…
i am your offspring, too…
will i quit the world like you
after one agonizing birth?
will this gray matter splatter in one
tortuous burst?…will my love fail again
and again to move?
must i bear this unwanted seed forever?
for daring to pass this contagion in me…

a heat in coldness…an endless cord snipped,
bleeding—running dry…
how much must i absorb before it is enough?
how tightly must i press…
not a syllable escaping…
it must not spread…
when i am silent and drained…
may i rest in peace…
mother mary?

prayer...soliloquies
ja allen

strangers...

the pores of flannel, of your warm flesh
smell like kerosene,
and you like a man who has places to go
and is easily set on fire…

within the cushion of your fragrant smoke rings,
my scalp tingles as if every
word inside were seeking a way out;
the center tightens, constricts,
like the onset of revulsion;

my rigid tongue begins to unravel
the tangle and it is spoken, at last…
your thick mass of hair becomes the most
tangible object in my vision, and i wrap it round and round
my aching fingers;

you are my reality; i am sick to death of fantasy
of elusive mind sewers;
i need to wrap you round and round inside of me
until this diseased corner of my mind
is healed by the wholeness of you and
your ability to put everything aside…

but i fear the reverse—of you becoming
possessed by me,
like the sallow bird of the sill,
trapped by invisible glass,
beating, beating against it,
never seeing the way out through
the open door…

strangers...soliloquies
ja allen

communion...

love and you
elude me, never
to recall the need.

so, if i carve
the foreskin indiscriminately,
it is only that i fail again
to appreciate the need
in you.

unlike you,
i have no power to
awaken the dead,
to worship a corpse
spread out lethally
in hopes of resurrection.

your scar will heal;
but not mine—
it is eternal.

i was stuck
like a pig
and left to bleed
upon this altar
you erected to worship me…

i will not be
recreated
for you…

i prefer to await
the more
bloodless passion.

communion...soliloquies
ja allen

reincarnate...

i, too, have been haunted by the spirit of absence,
searching mists, halved, coated
under the sugared textures of lamplight…
a hopeless phantom upon a dying stead,
you were here and gone,
swallowed by the frustrated fog
bordering an incandescent moor
where we all learn to weep.

i lived inside you;
touched the mellow tones of your sighs,
tumbled in tears down your face,
nestled in each breath you sucked in the frigid air;
i lived in the arena of your endless thought,
dipped into the well of your soul…
i possessed you without words of love,
without the comfort
of secure hearths, fragrant fingertips…

now the words are impossible, dying on my
rigid tongue which floats dully, uncontrollable, heavy,
like an arm deadened by sleep…
still in my dreams i find you;
but you fail me there where i cannot
bury the loss…

in the night before mind shadows descend,
i crawl into myself to look for you;
to weep, to scream in the darkness where I cannot
see reflections or hear echoes of the sun;
they have, as you promised, proved faithless…
the glass bubble, refuses; it blows only emptiness;
i see shrouds…

in the morning they shall free my ashes
across this sterile terrain…
and how shall we find it again, searching through
mouthless caves, caverns of flesh
for the bits and pieces that were yours all along?

will you love an urn upon your mantle?
will you place the silt upon your vast altar?
will you conceive me again and wrap me in the soft
recesses of your flesh,
loving me with the touch of your hand as well as your
infinite mind?


reincarnate...soliloquies
ja allen

interpretation...

i feel a pulse beneath this pain
repressed and black like the night breeding it...
an uneasy intercourse of desire and reason
echoing madly beneath a guise of quiet assurity.

i fear, like the faithful logician,
being pinned on my back…
unexplained, bested, stripped of meaning;
terrified my dreams may seep through
pores of flesh…
i grind my teeth…

the words turn in on themselves and
confuse understanding.
i wait for darkness to define tomorrow’s promise
of integration…

for the days prove porcelain,
delicate china rooms and mirrored corridors
connecting closets of confusion…
i avoid myself in passing through transparency…

even though i wish to pace deliberately,
i crawl from corner to corner,
afraid to be judged in definite postures,
prematurely circumscribed…

i cannot avoid that person whose reflection
startles me…
i talk to wall-board images standing within my
reticent shadow…
they ask no questions.

there is only fear inside these rooms…
in the night i tie my fingers with
strands of my hair, waiting,
suspended between pockets in the vacuum…

when the glare of light precedes the roar of dawn,
i am huddled in the corner,
defenseless against the pallid white backdrop,
watching the air rush from the room…

interpretation...soliloquies

ja allen

betrayal...

i bought him with my life savings…
pounds of flesh, pink and pure.
since then, i have waited, poised on brittle brinks,
cliffs of unending descent…

you always at the bottom of teacups, dreams…
i have been bound, gagged by your
ceaseless wisdom, your kindness which strangles,
hardening the blood in my head…

into nights i have soared, wrapped only
in you…the filter of your voice,
your fear encased in cellophane…
i have been seduced by golden rings;
steel bands in your gray shadows…
violated by your ageless doubt…

but it is gone, now, air sucked from the eye,
tucked into the folds of aging flesh…
reach now for my calloused hands;
they harden with the knowledge i offer;
you will shrink from my touch…
my stampede tramples you, hooves
echo the mind you buried with my soul,
with the unveiling…

his eyes now cleanse you of doubt,
as he sees you, undisguised by me…
sees you turn,
aged, beaten, consumed with longing
you cannot mask with delicacy,
the claws of your hesitancy…

his eyes, his eyes…my love,
will always mirror the naked
astonishment of your greatest fear….

betrayal...soliloquies
ja allen

homage...

i have this compulsion to lower my eyes,
just for a moment,
as you stare at me…
but i won’t because you expect it.
you wait for me to bend, to snap off
at my neck beheaded by the force of
your almighty magnetism…
the inflection of your clipped tongue
offers just enough irony;
while your eyes retain
just enough sarcasm
to sustain the smile here
somewhere on my face…
if your words escape me,
you don’t…
while i have never seen bullshit vaporized
in spray cans,
i have seen garbage wrapped in
pretty bows…
so as i sit here nodding, bowing, giving
credence to your paltry thoughts…
i secretly hope that you will
move down wind…


homage…soliloquies
ja allen

home movies...

i crawl along the baseboard
ready to scurry away
when the angry glare of light
warns me of intrusion
or the vacuum threatens
pure annihilation…
i sift through the crumbs,
the dust, the silence.
as my shriveled extremities
fight movement…
i wish to close my eyes;
it’s time to recoil the shuttle
and watch the shadows jerk by
like an old reel
on an endless wheel…
i see your faces come and go,
smiling, bright, full of
hope…you are all that
i am now…
and in the breath of
your promise,
i fade away…


home movies...soliloquies
ja allen

morning after...

if the morning was abrupt,
the night may as well lasted forever;
we learn to solicit smooth transitions,
one to another,
like two people exchanging hands,
expecting warmth…

but the sun arrives without warning and jars us
into unwilled consciousness;
facing the mirror and the reflections of lies,
do we dare reach for the promise
that led us through the night?
in a steady pause of reflection,
yearning, do we continue to search days for
a reason to continue
this unwed sequence of dreams?
in our eyes, we betray truth
and see what we can…

in our eyes, there is you and me,
waiting for the words to say what we think we feel,
reaching through the curtain of confusion
for the moment of peace…
drawing away from expectations, the
judgments—closing out doubt until dawn…

there is nothing beyond the moment;
it is ours forever. no one can steal it away and
nail it high unless we allow it…
as the smoke curls around my fingers,
i linger longer and remember;
grateful to have been there with you at least once…
before the sun came to drag me
away by my heels…

morning after...soliloquies
ja allen

40 acres

it is simple enough—
this dead love…
this dark-headed memory
of deadly eyes
and a fear of falling…

delivered at last from quivering flesh
tortured by doubt, flailing
at feelings too deep to resuscitate,
numbed by sensations too
intense to endure…

now i rest my head in white air
and count the bitter stars;
they blink as always
like stones under water…

the silence descends all at once…
down pipes, through tunnels
where i once heard pigeons scream…nothing;
the scent of retreat is preceded by
this sonorously still room…

i turn my cheek to the cold;
inside the gaping holes,
pockets of hot air, like geysers,
buoy me from one plane
of indifference to another…


40 acres...soliloquies
ja allen

mind affair...

i am wrapped in silence, afraid to open my eyes
and gaze at sun-bleached limp curtains and
the unholy disorder of this room…

i have filtered the surface again and again;
but it always returns to this…
the gray brick tiles, scratched and dusty…
the wall hole where he smashed his fist in anger
at another of my shortcomings…

the cluttered array of jars, bottles, newspapers,
magazines, books…
nothing fits neatly in this conglomerate of things…
especially me
who longs for elegance and serenity
in well-appointed surroundings…

beauty, i tell myself, is a state of mind…
so i roll over and push my face into the pillow,
returning to you…your eager, elegant eyes
drawing me back into our little world;
so long gone, now…
i touch you and listen to the words which are
an endless torment and a pawned fascination to me…

i was part of your dream, then;
just as you have continued to be mine,
and i want you to surround me again
before i must rise and open the shades
on another starless day…

mind affair...soliloquies
ja allen

the viewing...

they whisper to the fat undertaker
who laughs and pulls the drapery…
so, this is it.
a glimpse,
a blistered absence refracted in a bald eye…
no immortality for this granite opacity.

bloated, they circle interpretation
their pudgy fingers wrapped around cigarettes,
pudgy pig joints bulging through pallid, pure flesh…
they live under deadwood, i think.

my rigidity does not awe this multitude.
they look for a crack;
but the flaw is cemented in my eyes
and they cannot get beyond my ponderous thighs…

“speak,” they demand.
they hold bloody stones,
questions with sharp edges…
my mouth blows open
and sprays this tiny room with wet words
i held beneath my tongue too long.

they scurry
fat spiders to safe corners
muttering about integrity…
“i am my own creator,” i scream after them.
“i have no strength left for marble.”

but they have moved to another room
where perfection is solid and silent…

viewing...soliloquies
ja allen

waiting...

you should be sitting there, in that chair,
watching me, guessing where i am…

i have no audience, nothing to call me away,
and I want you to try again to save
me from my mind…
the game i invented for you, darling;
i only play it with you because i need it
and you want it…

little do you suspect how far into you
i have gone…
beyond your eyes, beyond the words on
your lips…
far, far into you…
now life is boring without you
and your promise,
and, i miss you…

but the game looms dangerous,
in the distance, tomorrow…
about to consume us, i fear…
there is nothing else i have to offer you
to make you wait for me…

and if the charade becomes
my reality, you will soon weary of
darkness and dreary doubt…
of my inability to get beyond me,
back into you
where the real joy of us lies…


waiting...soliloquies
ja allen

evolution

i had a voice—it wished to speak,
to be acknowledged; unfortunately
it is broken now…
but you should be able to understand,
if only half of my words are concrete,
you only half-listen, anyway,
and then, hear what you wish…

it wasn’t always this way;
once you listened full-time; but, then
i had nothing to say;
you grew impatient when i faltered,
when i contradicted myself…
so i made a point of rushing through
trivia into silence…

now you grow impatient with my quiet;
but you cannot blame me;
i protect you from my mind, from words
only formed in stillness,
the stiletto of my fingers moving
quickly through the air…

i know i should offer you another reading…
but i am unable to explain what is
too far inside for you to hear…
i do not expect you anymore…
now you must learn to live with doubt, anxiety…
the need to know what is
beyond your comprehension….

evolution...soliloquies
ja allen

musings...

i understand the need to herd shadows,
well-tended marks on the mind at dusk;
ordering them from left to right
is easier than sitting still for tomorrow.

interpretation is less painful than definition…
it can be done after shock subsides
and truth wanes…
when the sun softens
and night prods shadows forward,
undefined and profuse….

immediacy slips away
as distance nears.
smoke rings circle vagueness
and in candlelight uneasiness fits.

who can find certainty here?
there is nothing to see but slivers of light
and a host of memory…

not once have i looked for god
and found peace…
not once have i looked for love
and found salvation.

never in my life have i found
the right way to love…or give…
without massive hurt,
retribution or denial…

truth is a myth like god…
love is an abstract too shaded to paint…
my masterpiece, then, is voided…
no room, left, here—

for hope—no exit from myself
and no assurity that here on the ledge—
when you jump…
you may fall…

musings...soliloquies
ja allen

janus

it is ivory—carved with bloody nails;
i offer it to you…
it is all I have left.
you have rejected the rest;

it is a cornerstone to weight the edge of your reality,
a fealty…beauty will only weather…
i have no strength for marble.
no one deserves to be loved as you are;

no one deserves to love as i must—to carve
with fragmented tusks of memory…
the eyes of consciousness have engulfed you and
cast me adrift…we are continents apart.
my hope flees with the inches.

the prolonged intercourse of our pain
has degenerated to silence…yet, when I long
to see your face, i turn my head into the wind
and evolve toward stone…

when i succumb to memories,
my mind gasps and i am left
with emptiness,
for you are never real…

you remain a distant god aloof and alone
whose shadow casts a twin countenance
aligned, indefatigable…against the
inevitable march of madness—
which must conquer us
if we face it alone…

janus...soliloquies
ja allen

summer retreat

like all deceptive surfaces,
the lake is beautiful…
waves rise and fall as if pushed
by undulations of
land mass underneath…heavy,
pregnant labor always
giving birth to motion, beauty
and life…

the people on shore eye it;
each seeing themselves;
each lost in memories, capturing another
moment, while the
indifferent water slaps the shore,
eagerly pursuing the limits,
greedily lapping time in ceaseless rhythm…

those who know it best will leave it first;
they have plumbed its depths,
ridden it in the swells of youth…
viewed the world in the
unnatural calm next to shore…
in the late afternoon sun,
waiting for the reflection of the icy moon…

but the lake doesn’t know…unaware
of the life that pursues it…
the comings and goings of the land creatures;
the eternal spring that feeds
the surface lies deep and inaccessible…

the land creatures fall prey to seasons…
the waters cannot sustain them forever;
but as they pass away, others rise to take
their place, keeping their own
rhythm, rising and falling, pacing here on the shore
where they renew hopes and dream
of futures, relive pasts, waiting for only for their last
view upon the shore…

soliloquies...
summer retreat
ja allen

prelude

there is a dead eye on the wind
off-centered and troubled,
it follows my trembling dance around calloused corners.
the air beneath it grows too innervated
to lift off my shoulders and swallow…
the hallowed voice within demanding release
spits piety like rain.

i bend my defiance frog-legged beneath me,
denying her lioned-breathed prophecy of promise.
the wailing walls anchor my disbelief as i bury
myself beneath them, waiting for the sour heavens to die…
the gaping socket spurts like consumed wives;
in the vacancy of birth it offers immunity;
in the absence of reason it offers distance.
it waits for me to see and fill it with certainty…

within the wrinkled furrows surrounding it,
beyond the scowl of ancient anger, the spirals
of anticipation wait for a sign
before it descends to suck me up within it.
the cold spider-limbed thrust traps
dried leaves of hope into life,
racing frenzied to escape the six-inch flight above ground.
shadows fall with realization i will not rise to it again.
i will not make it whole; the unyielding
eye remains impotent to breed my desire…
to stir words from me in pursuit of the wind.

i refuse to look twice upon futility,
to continue searching gray matter
for substance to fill the eye…
my weariness is cold, an icy spine of indifference.
truth is gone, split from turn to turn
into lines too twisted to follow.
the naked tirade above only pushes me further
inside the pillar of salt.

soliloquies...
prelude
ja allen

end game

i lay back in your arms again,
tired, weary of trying to be what i am not…
i only want you, now, this moment.
you roll my hand between yours
and i touch each finger, like a blind poet
attempting to lose myself
in the sensation of seeing…
i rest my head on your chest
and feel the urgency of your impulse to crush me…
there are only words between us;
words we feel need to be there in explanation
for this strange night…
for what we cannot explain.

love lingers…
but we cannot grasp abstracts wrapped
around each other…
music entertains us; but the smoke frees us from it
and we reach for something to tie us down…
excuses…
my words dress me in untouchable pauses,
fragrant dilemmas,
yours, toss you down the road with other free spirits…
and beyond them lies the truth…

we are here, forever, for a night;
feeling what two people must and cannot afford…
wishing to still the indifferent race of time…
wanting more than we can see or touch inside walls…
pushing away sadness for the end of a dream;
knowing tomorrow will crush
and eat away the sensations and the will
to continue hope…

soliloquies...
endgame
ja allen

lovers...

a contradiction always, your beauty,
my sandpaper tongue…how it ravishes you.
you demand imperfection…
love with a hole in it,
a great vacuum-centered release.
nails with no pain,
no power to hold…
to rip the cat off your back.
i relegate you to fours,
you flip me mid-air on the way down;
i never reach the top…

our stairs lead to hell;
we never use them except to escape
the ice-water shock.
your bird mouth, omnipotent,
waits on the cat that stalks you.
it is only a giant pit where you fall…
as you clench it hermetically
in determined repentance,
until the snake tongue calls you
to siphon kindness you dole in unequal proportions.

the great caw has suffered credulity…
it is empty…it no longer feeds you.
the crows have flown into the winds,
into blight, into obscurity.
we meet like shears in the garden,
sensing vulnerability,
knowing the braille grass will cover our tracks,
knowing we can only love each other,
we eat our hate…

lovers...soliloquies
ja allen

pedestals...

love rots in distended silence,
the carcass of memory picked clean.
only skeletal remains feed our need
to re-embody desire…
baked beneath bloated anger.

A virgin trek across vagrant sands seeking the promised
oasis left brief footprints,
winds following soon confused deliberate steps
sweeping around us like a granite screen
allowing momentary pinpoints of clarity.

joys of discovery deteriorated to knowledge
and truth became a poisoned waterhole
where we stopped to quench our thirst,
for obscured water is filled with varied queries
left by other purists;
the bottom is always hidden from view--
even the warning did not slow us for we were thirsty and
anxious to be filled…

the black and powerful sun overhead drew
away the moisture of promise
and drained the blood from the wind;
stilled, the tumult died…
in the rush of realization we recognized the naked truth
of our intent rising to consume us,
helplessly bereft in an endless field of white…

in the end we denied the longing of reflected eyes—
and crucified each other
with old boards and rusty nails from the heels of our boots,
returning to green indifference…

pedestals...soliloquies
ja allen

teacher...

when we met tower bells warned us

about Sartre’s rules, about ancient straps

of defense at the bottom of our truths…

our farewell was an anticlimax;

the guarded bough of our lengthy digression

strangled in aborted time.

strangers crept inside and we were lost.

the window was our setting…you on the sill;

me on the floor, searching,

searching beyond your eyes.

light pouring through the panes

of weighted glass always cast

your shadow across my face.

your questions only called for silence;

mine were unasked.

if we cornered an answer in that room,

we trapped ourselves as well.
like the beast of burden, we laid down

and died from the constant demand

upon limited strength.

and it was absorbed in the water-spotted

ceiling, in walls where paint peeled

unevenly, baring contests of the past.

now, it is an anachronism, like me,

it is ancient, clouded, a paradox

of understanding betrayed in a musty library.

it was lost in the corner of insinuation,

in the agonizing rush of realization,

forever recorded in the cracks of this forbidden room

where we approached the bells and silenced them;

where you learned to love and hate simultaneously…

teacher...soliloquies

ja allen