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