GAS Featured Poet: Dee Allen

Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California U.S.A. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 7 books--Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black  (all from POOR Press), Elohi Unitsi  (Conviction 2 Change Publishing) and coming in February 2022, Rusty Gallows  (Vagabond Books) and Plans (Nomadic Press) and 42 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.

IN EXCHANGE

___________

I feel for the antediluvian forests 

Being systemically cut for

American lumber for building

Spreading more civilisation,

European biomass for burning 

As factory-made fuel, new

Means to spoil the air--

Critters of the trees, of wings and paws,

Forced to fly and crawl to new lives 

Of displacement--

Their original homes in exchange

For uncertainty--

THE PECAN TREE

_____________

Before age 12:

Put me in a high place 

And the fear of falling

Would defeat me.

At age 12:

To break from boredom

Sitting inside the house,

I walked outside,

On a whim,

To my aunt and uncle's backyard

To climb up

A pecan tree.

Limb by sturdy

Nut-bearing limb, 

My bony pre-teen self

Made like an annual cicada

Clutching the bark,

Scaling up, up, 

Up and away

To the deciduous

Tower's highest point.

As my spindly arms 

Held tightly onto the super

Steady trunk of the pecan tree,

My eyes beheld 

A whole world 

Different from ground level:

Many chimneys, rooves, metal TV antennas,

Building blocks to aerial

Suburban stretch for one mile,

Alone in an alien dimension that

Included the top of my house.

The climb up the pecan tree

Was easy.

The climb back down

Was the real

Test of courage. A matter of

Reversing my moves

Very carefully.

I no longer feared high places.