THREE POEMS BY DAVID ALLEN

OPTIONS

Time to move on
Despite my best efforts

Considering the wreckage
I leave behind,
Is it better to
Be forgiven

Or just forgotten?

FINAL THOUGHTS

High on the Hardangervidda plateau
Three hundred and twenty-three reindeer huddled
Against the maddening rain when lightning speared
Into the ground and
Spread its electric current though the dirt towards the animals
Climbing through their hooves and legs and bodies
Quitting their collective heartbeat
As the last of the three hundred and twenty three
Slumped into the grass and the moss and the lichens
He wondered
Am I dying?
I must be dying
For the wages of sin is death
What is my sin?
What is sin?
Do I have a soul?
Is there a heaven?
Will I be welcome there?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

WHAT WOULD KEROUAC THINK

If I let this wet, half-dead poem see the light of day?

I’ve sweated over it for almost an hour now
*Really*
And there’s still no spark, no beat, no jazz

The lines lay on the page…
Limp?
Stagnant?
What’s the word?
Flaccid.
That’s it, flaccid

Maybe I should have hitched cross-country first for
Inspiration
Or moved to Greenwich Village to study
At the feet of the giants
Like Ginsberg
Does Ginsberg still hang out at the Pony Stable Bar?

I’ll give this one another twenty minutes
Before moving on
There are many other poems to be written
Dozens of them

And I have all summer to become famous