Hecale

A Portal For Writers


all that poetry is


all that poetry is
is just
writing down what
it looks like
& sounds like
from the mind of a
two year old
child
reading life in any
which
way
other than the
way in which
it's written
feeding the fish
that swim
in
the heart
or jumping from
a rooftop
at sunset


(Previously published in Red Fez)

©Lester Allen 2008

the cock and the swan


it's a pair of shoes
tucked in an
inappropriate corner or
forgetting to buy lunch meat
at the grocery store

 
it's a road trip with
poor directions or
none at all
careless syllables slipping
off the lips that
aren't readily retrieved

 
all the tiny little things
that make up
the big thing
the mystery we live
but do not bother
trying to solve

 
like a drunk
dinner conversation
at your parent's
place that goes
nowhere
and ends in
god

 
like me standing
in the doorway
talking to tigers
from a distant
planet
in the universe
that is
your
mind

 
doing that
then quietly
shutting the door
behind me


(Previously published in Kill Poet)

©Lester Allen 2008

battleground


hate came so simple
then
the power-struggle of men
in the infant stages of
the school yard
bred through the
awkward
eyes of
jealousy
and indifference

 
the ugliness of
upbringing
on display  in
prey upon the weak and
misfortunate
getting your guts
punched in for
wearing cheap shoes
or moving about
awkward in the youth of bodies
trying to work it out
with words that fell like darts
at the base of the board

 
we made our monsters there
amidst the cold sting of monkey-bars
and teeters of see-saws
- the invisible walls of
the four-square world
of  our existence

 
like cubs in first freedom
from their mother
facing conflict
we learned to fight
the fight
when there was nowhere
left
to run

 
we fashioned our shells
to protect us
from the world
 

that they've held up
as good as they have
still strikes with a
surprise and
spreads a smile across the face
so rarely displayed
while enduring the
pain of making it



©Lester Allen 2008