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