You won't know me, not at first, if
    in fact you show, it's late, I've changed, old
    greasy coat, no underwear, hair falling out
    while poem-spit dribbles
    down my chin: oh no you won't be sure, dead
    sure that what you see before you
    in the dreaming door is what you've sought,
    you call it Soul or Self or Higher Power-Good God!
    and here it is, or I am, to hell with names
    though neither they nor it nor I
    intend you harm, we never have,
    though we may have spooked
    you, true enough, in the past, badly, you must
    forgive us: how far Doubt drags us till we holler Stay!
    But what is sure
    is I'll unnerve you, like blood
    blooming where it shouldn't: you'll stall
    in the yard, stoned (still) and knocking
    your heels till night descends
    and your starry questions
    rise, the old doozers, the dancers---Was darkness first?

    Does God dream? Does Evil ever sleep?
    Just what is justice anyway? Fork
    on the right? Knife on the left? Huh?
    Does anyone hear? Miserere! You are
    so dear to me!
    Still.
    But it's your poem and you'll look
    surprised, as if there were some other
    life you'd rather live, though it's you
    who called, you did, left hand
    dialing while the right plays dumb, can we meet,
    gotta talk, and I knew you were in the neighborhood,
    sirens and fuckyous and shattering glass, the human
    music, and now you're here, again, and I implacably
    in front of you, I may even be inside, yes, high
    in the skull lodge, that close, shawled in smoke
    and smut, at the eye-caves peering out, watching
    the road, trying to write it down without deceit,
    with nothing but the plainest words and the small
    music they sometimes make---your best voice, you know it,
    booming but kind, cuffless, quavering,
    whereas I can only scratch it here, on glassy air,
    in dwindling light---shivering now and nothing, not
    a sound, are you coming, you called, you

    said it's urgent, damn it, who,
    WHO, ring it now with your whole voice, the real
    question, the bone of it, the bloody bone, you've
    got it, go on, at last, ask it, yes, jesus, is it
    Love you want, is it Love in your face, Love waiting,
    you calling, confused, confounded, cursing, it is urgent,
    yes, can you see me, here, hands out, in the dark,
    it is always urgent, always begging, always now---



Copyright © Jed Allen, 1999, 2009.  All Rights Reserved.