after life...

i seek sanctuary under poison oak leaves beneath an august moon
as errant whistles and cat-calls rebound
over tremulous planks reminding me i do not belong here
where young women strut self-assured, robust,
stuffed with domestic grain, wild oats and cherry blossoms,
fragrant in the wind, poised on the bow,
anticipating the lure of bigger things...

i tremble thrust in the depths of dreams,
in the cotton tail dust of life whipped and beaten down
by winds assaulting the safe shore...
where i once walked naked and unafraid
in the early morning before loons
finished the last encore of their melancholy melody,
when life was free of lines and shadows...

abandoned by perfectionists, rejected by sensual men,
repelled by those hawking immortality,
i fled instead to cold, deep waters where the bottom remained hidden
as secrets of past truth seekers adhered
like barnacles to the underside of an ever-receding point...
i sucked fear like air through a straw straight into my heart
praying that deadly air bubbles not burst my remaining reason...

numb, in time, i crawled onto sands of shifting succor
within rigidly defined pockets where i sifted the tiny bones
of my unfulfilled promise...
sirens of longing shrieked in the distance begging me to
settle down with old dreams and lost lovers...
reeking of mildewed letters and rancid verse;
i re-licked memories of dried kisses and caked longing...

as i rejected the slow descent into mossy memory, i exchanged vortex
for vital shores, subsisting yet in shadows,
in shallows, recycling life through a pipeline, unseen and untouched...
voices that stimulated wonder brokered breathless anticipation,
but unable to comprehend queries, to sense the edge of spiny worlds,
where lust overpowers love, where ego stifles egression,
i overrode rules of engagement, suffering derision by masters...

flipped onto my back to see if i could right myself...
i wrestled to avoid the manic pull of mainstream recalling its burdensome, untenable posture of surrender...now eternally estranged
i whisper words to madmen, strangers in the dead of night,
listening closely for the next clue to my retooled reality...
massaging the text, the fabric of duplicity that allows my
existence inside a world that passed me by...

after life...
by ja allen
prism gates