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Ritual

Quietly watching another is a sacred priveledge

She vanished into the yard.
Her daily garden inspection
Seeking gifts in the morning dew.
Snipping an offering from a toddler rose
She returned laying her harvest at the feet of the Buddha

Allen S. 6/15/2

Return

A ritual of care

You have been gone these several days
Today is your return
Your trip replete with deeds of grace
Compassion for one spurned
I too love you, unmeasured heart
So wholly full of love
That God decided from the start
To share you like a dove

Allen 08-29-14

Breathe

Right under our nose

Like the dog chasing his tail
We pack in frenzied expectation
Finally underway we breathe
Breath is the true beginning

Allen S 8/15/20

Circular Conversation

Intimacy takes a familiar form

Gazing across the breakfast table.
Eyes exploring the depths of our love
How could we have survived the irregularities
The circumstantial catastrophes of old age
Ending together across this well worn dining table
Piles of correspondence surrounding
Leaving us to quietly speak to one another
Casting glances over circular conversation
Assuring each other that our hearts are locked
Irreparably, blessedly linked till death us do part

Allen S. 11/3/19

Mediocrity

An experience yields poetic humor

We ordered from the menu at our favorite restaurant and the wait-person complimented our choice, “Excellent choice!” As she turned to leave, I decided I wanted another item instead. (What? change my excellent choice? Well yes!) I wanted something else. I stopped her and told her of the change, “Good choice” she retorted as she jotted it down and turned to leave.” As she was leaving my wife added, “And can we have the appetizer before the main course? “Absolutely!” she chimed, (as though that was her intention all along) as she headed to the kitchen. But we had been around the block a few times and weren’t deluded. We have had everything stacked and getting cold in front of us, when wait persons don’t have the forethought to plan our meal experience in advance, so we know to remind them what we expect.
The entire experience reminded me how fed up I am with Superlative Language, (not to speak of half trained wait staff) you know, Service Language. I am so relieved, for example, that the doctor’s office doesn’t use it. When I go for a distasteful procedure I am relieved that I am not told I made an “Excellent Choice” by some person a quarter of my age. Hell, it is a necessary choice, maybe, but on any given day I would find it excellent to be choosing anything else other than having a tube placed in places that tubes were never designed to go. See what I mean? Just tell me I arrived on time and that the doctor will actually be able to see me in the next fifteen minutes (and that happen) and all will be copacetic.

Here is a poem to which this ranting gave birth?

Mediocrity (the poem)

What ever happened to mediocrity.
You know, ‘I’m Ok, You’re Ok.’
“What just Ok?
Not Awesome?”

Yes … just OK!
Quiet, Peaceful, Stress free
Me – di – oc – ri – ty
OK?
ABSOLUTELY!

Extravacance

Not optional

Religious types have more difficulty
with extravagance than restraint
Restraint seems more their calling
Right or wrong,
Gratification? Delay it!
Confession absolution
Deny ones self

What of the road less traveled?
Flying too close to the sun
Basking in abundance
Extracting beauty for the minds eye
What about awaking tantalized by a morning’s array
Seeing as for the first time
Opening eyes to the depth of the ordinary
Drinking in all surrounds
Smelling the sweet scent of compost
Hearing hummingbirds approach
Feeling the quiet between sounds

Cover me over with this extravagance.
Convict me of flaunting this opulence.
This unrestrained burst of appreciation
Charge me, yes charge me with simply being

Allen S. 5/2/2021

THE WAVE

A part not apart

OPI am the wave 
the wave is me
Tossed and rolled
by the incoming sea
I ebb and flow
feel a powerful surge
Lie limp left to dry
On the sand where we merge

AllenS 2018

Chasing Rainbow

Dedicated to the Norwegian nymph Huldra

Turning around I beheld her
Casting her garment
Over darkened valley
Projected from some
Beyond behind me
Catching me in deep surprise
Reaching recesses long forgotten
“There is beauty,” I said,
“There is something to live for
Some face to follow into this forest.”
Calling heart to abandon
Landscapes familiar
Lessons once learned.
Laws thought immutable.
But what if her back is absent
Mountainside mirage
Leaving no footprints to follow
No scent to draw me deeper
No embrace to cradle these aching bones
What if, when standing in her trace,
She dissolves like morning mist.
No cloak to wrap me.
No beauty calling my name.
No sleeper waking to my touch.
What if then I discover I am alone, lost in this forest?

Allen S 3/21/2021

Screech

Boyhood Memory

Screeches cracked the ember coals of night
Sparks flurried consumed by the hungry dark
Chills course through my once lethargic body
Triggering a backflip into the safety of my tent
Trembling in the uncertain cloister
I yank my bedroll my chin still fully clothed
Ears wide open, I await the attack
Dark silence simmers the thicket
Suddenly great flapping wings signaled the lifting of some giant predator
Swifting away over the pine tops
Screeches to some distant prowling perch
positioning itself over another unsuspecting prey.

Allen S 3/28/2

Red Fall

Love nature

My breathless heart caught notice of your radiant leaves

Blazing in Fall reds melting frost still clinging frantically each lobe

Framed against changing panoply of soft greens and yellows

Like some luscious fruit presenting yourself for harvest

AllenS   02/23/08

Grandfather Tree

Regenerative decline

Out of this body you came Nourished by my decay   Drinking from my tears   Sinking roots into my soil

 Allen S. 08/16//03

 INDELIBLE MOMENT

A child’s legacy

My heart holds clearly
one moment
One image etched on
memory’s retina
You are now grown
child and love of your own
You have experienced
worlds I can only imagine
Yet minds distant eye
still returns to that moment
Holding you on one arm
Head in hand feet touching my breast
My heart vulnerable to your
slightest pain
I made the unkeepable promise
parents are thankfully doomed to break
Life has now welcomed you
into its waiting arms
Indelible moment
has engraved my heart

AllenS  11/02/2008

No one Meant

le chemin de toutes choses

This was written before the current wave of misinformation surfaced in the US. It is clear today that lies and half truths are an incremental part of governing strategy. There still may be some truth to which the poem still points.

Allen Simons

No one meant to lie
Intended only half truths be heard
Desired the pain lurching
In delicate omissions
No one planned for the young
To lunge forth half cocked
Headstrong
Untouchable
It just seems to be the way of youth
The way of not knowing
The way blind to signs
And roadside shrines
Even God’s hands are clean
No traces of clay
No tell residue
Betraying loss of control
No one is to blame
It is just the way it happens
The way things are
The way of life as we know it.

AllenS.         05/18/2010

 

SLAP IN THE FACE

Say it didn’t happen

THAT was a slap
In the face!
UNMISTAKABLE!
And you
Pretending it never happened
Unflappably disconnected
Looking at me
As though no assault was underway
Stinging sweet demeanor
Stealthy strategy
To ignore courtesy
Turning away this extended hand
I just want you to know
I felt it!
THAT WAS A SLAP!

Allen’s.  01/16/2012

ENOUGH

The cordial minimum

Thought of the sound in your voice when I revealed
I had read an article you wrote.
“You did!” you replied.
“It’s just reporting, dad.
That’s just what I do.“
I get this way too
“It’s just what I do, I say, Nothing special.        
Puts bread on the table.”
Somehow we minimize our gift
as if it is not enough,     
not authentically us,
not the fire we want our spark to light
Say this after me
Enough

AllenS 1/15/2012

Memory Holds

Response to Impermanence

Memory holds past 
Fast to us 
While change only endures 
Insecure in its presence 
We take the lure of the sure 

Lake surface releases reflection 
Stream reforms its bed 
Branches caress breeze as it passes 
No fast for past, instead 

All about is impermanent 
All about is change 
All round is reforming 
Divine promise remains 

 AllenS.        06-14-21

Pen Pal

Remembering Afgans

Connective Tissue

Sitting in this morning sanctuary
Volumes paper surrounding walls
My eyes graze fields sown by others.

Suddenly, I am struck …
I have neglected my own wisdom
In leu of others pearls

I retreive a ballpoint harvested from some teller window
Thoughts begin poping up like Whack-It

I write them down,
Nonsensical at first,
they begin to connect
Like senews in the Valley of Dry
Bones

© 2018 AllenS

Walking Edge

 

Walking this razor edge

        Above winding river

        Colorado

        Red highland wash

      Cleansing, carving, rejuvenating

Vast expanse

        Well worn path

     This rock cliff

        Ancestral journey

        Sounds of distant howling

        Echoe off canyon walls

Experience lift

        Fly in minds eye

        Ride thermals lifting above this tracing ridge

                This land

This gift

                This blessing

 

Allen Simons

9/17/2021