A few new words

Here are a few new words of mine. One is just a bit of prose, almost a caricature of someone i am close to. I like to take people close to me and zoom in on characteristics, exaggerate them, and then find something to write about. The next, a few dark words that i wrote in the middle of winter. And then a short poem that i think is partially influenced by one of my favorite poets of all time- Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. I love most of the postromantic poetry of spain, but his "Rimas y Leyendas" (Rymes and Legends) is one of my favorite written works of all time. 

"He was the type of person who would likely someday be walking along 

and not watch where he was going and suddenly find that he had tripped 

and fallen completely off the earth.

Of course this result may be quite to his liking.

Later on, he would insist that it was his idealist desire-

(to move to a place untainted by all the things he despises- 

that made him simply leap off this world on to one he 

could truly call his own." -jallen 2/10
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"Dreams"- jallen 12/09

i dreamed of you again last night.

but this time, instead of 

spitting in my face,

you pulled me close and whispered,

"everything will be alright."

and in that moment (if only in a dream)

everything was okay. 

___________________________

"My Eyes"- j allen 11/09

My eyes choose not to 

meet with your eyes.

They find it much too easy 

to make good conversation,

and feel much too at home

returning your glance.

They tell me to 

let them instead meet

with the back of your head,

where there is much 

less risk in having to 

quickly look away. 

Conversations with myself.

No matter what, there is no love like self love. There is no relationship that should be more important than the one we have with ourself. I hate lying to myself, telling myself I will get out of bed on time, won't eat the rest of the ice cream, will work hard if given a little bit of time to procrastinate. I have been working on being completely honest about stuff like this lately, and also on not taking myself too seriously. Here are a few poems/ quotes that I have run into lately all around this theme. 


The first a witty Miles quote:
"Some day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up." — Miles Davis
Next a melancholy bit of prose I wrote a few weeks ago when I was in a funk. 

"nights like this (telling the rain)"

on nights like this,  All

i really need is me. 

And some rain coming

cool through the warm air. 

Instead of shying away,

i turn my face up to it 

letting mist fall on my bare skin.

i feel like saying to it, 

"cut this pain that never goes

in half for me,

and we will see exactly

what it is to feel love.

i want to live without

longing for what could be."

the rain makes it

easy for souls to 

breathe, And

bit by bit i

can bear this

world

again. 

And finally, a poem by Derek Walcott, a poet I happened across for the first time not too long ago. Read it aloud and see if it does not bring a smile to your face by the third stanza. 


Love after Love- Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here.  Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.  Feast on your life.

Ode to a . . . Pomegranate

It seems that my two most recent poems have been inspired by a pomegranate. Last night I devoured one single handedly not sharing at all with my company. A few hours later, I was cursed (or blessed) with the incredible urge to write poem after poem and could barely process all the ideas coming out of every pore of my body. Of course, this urge to write could have been a result of the emotional state of mind I was in yesterday, but I prefer to believe that the fruit had some sort of power in helping me.

I love the feeling of historical richness that biting into a pomegranate brings to me. The first thing I associate with pomegranates is the Greek story of Hades and Persephone. When I was a young girl I became enthralled with Greek mythology, and the uniquely intertwining stories that always had some elements of tragedy within them. As a child I would read and reread the stories where a flawed character made a tragic error and urge them to change their actions. I thought that by doing this a character could at least once escape their seemingly inevitable fate. Alas, this never worked- Daedalus could warn Icarus all he wanted but his son would still fly too high. I could yell at the page at the top of my lungs but Pyramus would still assume Thisbe was dead. And no matter what instructions he was given, Orpheus would still give in to the temptation to look back at his beloved Eurydice.

In "Persephone and Hades", Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Hades and brought to live in the underworld. Persephone's mother, goddess of the earth, was so distraught by this that the earth became barren and the people living off it began to go hungry. Zeus was determined to fix this trouble and forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother. However, the Fates had a rule that whoever consumed food or drink in the underworld would be doomed to stay there for eternity. And before being released to Hermes, Persephone had eaten a few pomegranate seeds, and as a result would have to return to the underworld for a season each year; this explains why there are months that the earth is barren and why we have seasons.

In addition to being present in this popular myth, the pomegranate is a common symbol in other literature, art, and in religion. It is one of the oldest fruits known to man, and in Judaism it states that Eve consumed a pomegranate in the Garden of Eden. There are references to this fruit in Shakespeare, Homer, and Pliny, among others. It has been described as a symbol of friendship, fertility, and prosperity and also associated with the images of Christ and the Virgin Mary in Christianity. Also there are a few references to the pomegranate in the Quran as a fruit in paradise.

Here are the two poems I wrote last night. They may seem less artistic if you read them thinking that I only referenced the pomegranate because at this point I had a huge crimson stain on my pants. So, despite the intro forget that I even ate pomegranate last night!

"Pomegranate"

She was a very intelligent girl,

but when faced with you

could often forget that you, too,

are human and can feel and bleed

and are not all of the good things

in this life inside a single soul.

so naturally, when she cut into

the pomegranate, she forgot

that it was not just a sack filled with

minute beautiful treasures,

but a fruit which could leave her

with a crimson stain

(resistant to water just as you

seem to resist imperfection)

" I Would Say"

If you would give me a chance-

I would say all these things

that Float just beneath the surface

of my skin when I speak to you.

But:

Just as a single seed of the pomegranate

can burst-

leaving nothing but a hull of what was,

my soul seems to fly out of me when I face you-

leaving my mind and body thoroughly

without a master.

A few thoughts just before I sleep

I'm getting much better at writing down thoughts (musical, or otherwise) as they come to me. As a result I am losing less of my thoughts which is a great thing. Here is a little something that came to me a few weeks ago that I feel like putting up before I head to sleep.

"The very essence of mankind is creating rules with no intentions of actually following them ourselves.  But we keep on assuming that everyone besides ourself maintains some sort of strength over desire. And the fact that we continue to make these rules is where I begin to lose my faith in man"

Growing Up? I guess

Maybe it is just the mood I am in today but I feel like sharing some more of my writing. I am happy about this because I am usually afraid to share it with anyone. So if tomorrow this post is all of a sudden deleted it means that I have had a change of heart. So here are a couple in a few different styles.
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"Questions" - J. Allen 7/2009

This one is a little bit e.e. cummings with the parentheses and grouping. But the subject matter is. . .I don't know exactly what. I guess a lot of what I write is impacted by love. I am very much a romantic but try to pretend like I am tough skinned and unfeeling a lot of the time as well. (Two very conflicting things). Here is number 1 hope it is enjoyable.

“there are days when i long to ask you questions but fear that i will drive you away.”

(a preponderance of questions was almost always bursting from her).

“Questions that maybe you can handle, maybe i am confusing you with people similar to you when i assume you can’t”… You’d motion as if i should go on or you’d open your entire soul to me (in a fully endearing way).

“Well,

they’re questions like ‘Just you and i, would you like that someday?’ or ‘Have you ever noticed that my feet like to slide across red satin oceans and find your feet to have some company in the night’ or ‘What do you think the shape of a child of ours’ nose would be like?’ or ‘What exactly do you see upon my unlined face? What does my eager smile say to you?’ ”


Our time hasn’t come. While at times we are almost unable to see this (due to the amount of blood boiling in front of our eyes) deep down inside our stubborn, inflexible, argumentative beings, we know it.


“ ‘Just you and i, would you like that someday?’

I would.”
_________________________
"What Else"- J. Allen 7/ 2009
I wrote this the same night that I wrote the previous poem. The mood is clearly similar. 


we both enjoy
a soft breeze
blowing across
our skin.


beyond that,
what else really matters?
___________________________

The last poem I will share is from July of 2007 i never actually gave it a title. 

the surgeon wielded his scalpel with

care- neither slicing the outer walls

,nor leaving residual growth

(he'd been given the task

of cutting away the twist

-ed, dying vines that had be

-en strangling my heart)

finally, as the pounding crimson

muscle of vitality was reveal

-ed, a wave of emotion to my being.

(i wouldn't mind drowning in this feel

-ing, for even as it filled my lungs

,i would only think of how

i could get more of it.) 

 

stop, look, listen, love

"Listen. sit back. open your eyes as you close your ears to the noises that wouldn't be here if it weren't for our species. The world was fine long before humans, maybe even better off. And it will be again long after you and I are gone.  How beautiful were our cities before we got to them? Before we moved mountains and filled in rivers and carved away the earth where it didn't suit us. We could have bathed in any of its waters we chose. Before our harsh toxins with unpronounceable names. We would live as the animals live, as we were meant to live (for we are simply animals, are we not?).

The slow, old, sick animals die. The animals living in places prone to drought die. But we make ourselves poor by giving aid to those who live in places where they wouldn't normally survive. We make the old poor by making them pay to live, then we force them to take on an $8.00 per hour Wal- Mart job in order to buy cat food and their grandkids' Christmas presents.

We shouldn't be like this. We weren't meant to be like this. We were put on this planet to live like animals, to have the sole purpose of our lives to be survival. How did we come this far with such a terrible attitude and no need to remember the valuable lessons of history?

I see so much wrong in the world and in humans, yet let's acknowledge and then dismiss all of the wrong that exists, (for only then can we begin to process it and possibly come up with solutions). How can we have solutions? By using what we have and animals don't. Our minds. Our memories of the fates of every society before ours that has fallen. And our memories of the great creations that these cultures, too, had.

Not by using our vices- our greed our hunger, our need to be better than our neighbors, but by using simple compassion. We have souls and hearts and the ability to make our actions better the lives of others in our species. We can make the world better only by love. By smiling at whoever you see walking down the street. By always holding the door for the person behind you even if it takes twenty seconds out of your day. Your life is already years longer than it would have been if humans had never met civilization. And you have already accomplished much more than you would ever have if our sole purpose in life were to carry on the species. So breathe. Stop. Look. Listen. Love.

How can you make someone's life better if you are too concerned about yourself? Look outside yourself. When someone asks you how you are don't just tell them. Ask how they are. Your coworkers, friends, family, the cashier at the store. If someone tells you to have a nice day tell them to have one as well. Again, we have time in life. Think about all the time you spend on the internet each day, often impacting no one but yourself. Take it upon yourself to find reason to care about even people you assume you wouldn't be able to care about. Hold the elevator door. Smile at the person in the elevator with you. Ask them how their day is going. This is compassion. This is love.

And what if we all teach our children to do this, and they teach their children? And children are taught to love their planet and love their neighbors? And understand that there is one spiritual element to this world, though people around the world may regard it slightly differently. And get that this spirit is the reason scientists haven't fully developed a way to measure raw human emotion. And know that there are beautiful nuances to each and every language that give insights  into culture. And by learning a language we can understand our fellow man.

Let us all become citizens of the world and refuse to accept cruelty in any form!" The girl yelled this from the highest mountain, for she was frustrated with the people she saw daily complaining about their world but never trying to change it. She waited for a minute almost hoping she would get an instantaneous response or a resounding cry of agreement heard round the world. She heard only the sound of a chip bag being blown by the breeze. She sighed wondering what she alone could do for the world.

Nearby a young man left a coffee shop and paused slightly before he crossed the street. He casually was checking his email on his mobile phone while also checking his reflection in the glass of the store front (assuring that every bit of his designer clothing was in place). He turned his head slightly before he crossed, making sure that his face was at just the right angle to be viewed by the young woman who was about to cross the street also.  Meeting her gaze and holding it for a moment  while giving her a slight grin, he finished crossing the street, drank the last of his coffee, and threw his cup that read "please recycle" straight into the trash.

I love a good story

Well, who doesn't love a good story? Whether it's eavesdropping stealthily on the people behind me while I wait for Starbucks, a good read, or that trashy tv series I find myself catching up with online I love getting trapped in a good story. I say trapped because that is fully how I feel when reading a book, watching a movie, even listening to a friend's tale of a recent occurrence. Oftentimes, I will find myself emulating a certain character's plight- almost projecting their circumstance onto my life. Other times I am reduced to a type of addict, burning through page after page to get resolution.

There is a certain reassurance, though, in a story because no matter what genre it is or how suspenseful it is there is always some sort of predictability. Two characters so perfectly infatuated that they will clearly be together even if they are put through numerous trials to do so. A dictator that has ruled unfairly their whole life will eventually be overthrown. I find myself wishing on many an occasion that life could be more like the stories which I obsess over. That I could read the back cover and know that it would all turn out a certain way. Or when times were getting rough I could flip to the epilogue and have some idea of how things would end up. 

The problem I have with life is that I know exactly what I want from it. I'm sure many people have the exact opposite problem. It becomes a problem because I am a little bit of a perfectionist and push myself way too hard and freak out when I don't get better at something instantly. In other words a little reassurance that my life will end up near where I'd like it to would be amazing. Of course there's foreshadow like in any story, but a lot of times that can just be to add suspense, right? And there's always irony when something you are doing blows up in your face or goes exactly the way you don't want it to, but I have come to terms with that in recent days. . . 

Here is the second part of Mona Van Duyn's "Endings" I find her description of a story quite applicable to my present predicament. In her words:

 disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,

"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"

For what is story if not relief from the pain

of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?

Attached to this is a link to Mona Van Duyn reading both parts of this poem

Endings Part 2

Setting the V.C.R. when we go to bed
to record a night owl movie, some charmer we missed
we always allow, for unprogrammed unforeseen,
an extra half hour. (Night gods of the small screen 
are ruthless with watchers trapped in their piety.)
We watch next evening, and having slowly found
the start of the film, meet the minors and leads,
enter their time and place, their wills and needs,
hear in our chests the click of empathy's padlock,
watch the forces gather, unyielding world
against the unyielding heart, one longing's minefield
laid for another longing, which may yield.
Tears will salt the left-over salad I seize
during ads, or laughter slow my hurry to pee.
But as clot melts toward clearness a black fate
may fall on the screen; the movie started too late.
Torn from the backward-shining of an end
that lights up the meaning of the whole work,
disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,
"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"
For what is story if not relief from the pain
of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?
Minds in their silent blast-offs search through space--
how often I've followed yours!--for a resting-place.
And I'll follow, past each universe in its spangled
ballgown who waits for the slow-dance of life to start,
past vacancies of darkness whose vainglory
is endless as death's, to find the end of the story.