Tuesday, December 7, 2021

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.

2 comments:

  1. Wonderful...takes me right back in time to the childhood moment, on a metal-grate Gettysburg observation tower, i discovered my paralyzing fear of heights...

    ReplyDelete