ALLEN ITZ
I'm 60 years old. I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh 270 pounds. I used to be taller, thinner and younger but was transformed along the way by life and an excessive love of pecan pie. I published a couple of poems in the late 60's-early 70's, then quit writing (except for business writing) for nearly 30 years, as career and family took up most of my time and creative energies. I began writing again when I retired a couple of years ago.
Since then my poems have been published in a number of on-line literary journals, including The Muse Apprentice, Alchemy, The ShallowEnd, AvantGarde Times, The Poet's Canvas, Dynamic Patterns, Neiderngasse, Eclectica, The Melic Review, The Green Tricycle, Nectarzine, Experimentia, Planet Magazine, The Horsethief's Review, Maelstrom, Tryst, Beatnik and others.
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FIVE MINUTES IN THE FIRE WITH FIONA
under the table
her leg
against mine
moves
slowly
up and down
reaching for a paper clip
her hand
brushes mine
long red nail
leaving a trail
of fire a scar
smoldering
peering intently
at the paperclip
turns it over
passes
her fingertip
slowly over
the rounded
end tongue
pink against
her lip in
concentration
does she
sneak a
sidelong
glance
at me...
I hear my name called...
for the third time
I realize
and look to the end
of the table past
the double rows
of staring eyes
yes sir
I ask
your report
he says
my report
I ask
your report
he says
we’re waiting
for your report.
a low laugh beside me
like a whisper
like a breath of
warm air in a
frigid room
later
she said
or
was it just
another
laugh...
--------
GIGGLING IN THE HOT TUB AT 3 A.M.
giggling in the hot tub
at 3 a.m.
wakes me from restless dreams,
a goulash of middle-aged dread,
bills, work, the kid, the wife,
the sonofabitch who sold me the Volvo,
the grass, growing right now
while I’m trying to sleep, growing,
stealing my week-end
while I’m trying to sleep
the little spring-break girls,
giggling in the hot tub
while I’m trying to sleep,
splashing in the steam
rising from the tub
in the chill of night,
the little spring-break girls
in their little spring break bikinis
giggling in the hot tub
right outside my window,
the little spring-break girls
with their devilish little bikinis
and their devilish little giggling
and their infinite capacity to be oblivious
to the restless dreams of middle-aged men
and their infinite capacity to inspire middle-aged men
to foolish thoughts when they giggle in the hot tub at 3 a.m.
--------
LET’S GO SHOOT A BIG FAT CAPITALIST
the flack for the Safari Club
defends the sporting ways
of his wealthy employers
look
he begins
with a nod that says listen up
you tree
hugging
elephant
kissing
liberal
commie
nitwits
there are thousands and thousands
of elephants in Africa
shooting a few is no threat to the species
in fact
he adds
shooting elephants
is good for elephants
thins the herd
you know
reduces overgrazing
insures sufficient resources
for those that remain
we love these elephants
you see
and only do what we must
for the good of the herd
hmmmmmm
I say
of course
all for the good of the herd
--------
OUTTAKES FROM THE FIRST DAY OF THE WAR
nothing
leads to anything
short bursts
of thought
smoke
billows grey
down
city
streets
no connections
broken
gray streets awash
in a gray tide
dreams
bro
ken
smaller
smaller
p i
e c s
e
graypeopleghosts
gray ghosts
running
mind bro
ken
smaller
smaller
p i
e c
e s
crashing down
in silence
flowing
like water
down
riverwide
riverlong
riverdeep
riverstrong
riverflows
riverlives
rivertakes
rivergives
puddling gray
in croncrete and steel
t
h
r
e
a
d
thread
l
i
m
p
lick it
so it stays
straight
lick it
so it doesn’t
flop down
like an old man’s
d
i
c
k
make it straight
s t r a i g h t
through
the eye
pull tight
in and out
push in
push out
push in
push out
through the weaving
patterns
of our lives
bring the pieces
together
smoke
ash
ghosts surfing
gray tide
eyes wide
eyes wide
red rimmed
in a gray mask
eyes wide
in
disco nnect
--------
SO SORRY
so sorry to hear
you've been ill
and
so sorry to hear
you're going to hell
from the illness
that is god's punishment
for the sin
that is sending you to hell
when you die
from this illness
so,
sorry,
but don't get too close
--------
THE CRUELTY OF CATS AT PLAY
her black smile
cut like a dagger through the dark,
unseen
slicing cleanly to the heart.
“I have something to tell you,”
she whispered.
--------
THIS COULD BE YOUR FINAL WARNING
I’ve grazed in
corporate clover
strolled the power nexus
with lesser and greater men
than I, keeping well my
bureaucrat-in-bondage-
necktie-strangulated
cover
but don’t let it fool you
down inside
where the balance of my inner spheres
is truest kept,
I’m still the south texas
redneck-hippy-
beatnik-cowboy
I was
back on the cusp
of the ticky-tacky fifties
and kick-ass sixties,
which,
putting it all together
is about as much
don’t
you
fuck
with
me
as you can fit in one package
and right now it seems to me
that this whole damn world
and all its
dumb-ass politicians
and tight-collared, pervert pricks
and gangsters and punks,
pugs, mugs, thugs,
price-gorging
captains of business
and industry,
pollsters. tricksters,
and city-boy-slicksters
have come together
in some secret back room
where sanity skips its mid-day muster
for one massive spam attack
on the gentler ambitions of my nature
and it’s beginning to piss me off
--------
WHAT LIFE WILL DO TO YOU
living will kill you
if you don’t get it right,
draining your intellect
and shriveling your balls
until you don’t have it any more,
not the brains or the guts
or even the desire
to make life something
more than a midnight bus ride
from to conception to corruption
you’ve got devils after you,
you know,
they come at you from the beginning
and they stay after you until the end,
mediocrity,
complacency,
envy, greed, fear...
fear
now there’s the biggest devil
of them all
there’s so much to be afraid of
in life, big fears, little fears,
the fears of a child at night,
the last fears that haunt you
in your deathbed dreams,
and it’s so easy to lose your life
to them, so easy to hide, to bury
yourself under the covers,
safe from the furies of the dark
and alone
born alone, die alone
and lonely in-between
that’s what life will do to you
if you don’t do it right
--------
GOD SPEAKS TO ME ON INTERSTATE 10
burgers
fries
homemade
apple pies
the sign towers over the mesquite
and huisache and stubby scrub oak
like a message from god herself
lookee there at the top of the hill
she says
heaven’s hit the ground just ahead
and it’s waiting for you
I can see the little red building
and gas pumps and a cluster of cars
gathered round like in a prayer circle
usually
I’m a straight-ahead-don’t- give-me-none-of-
that-scenic-overlook -historical-marker- bullshit-
pee-in-a-paper-cup-and-I’ll-slow-down-to-fifty-
so-you-toss-it-out-the-window-traveler
usually I go and I go
and I go till I get there
but
my-oh-my-
burgers
fries
and
homemade
apple pies
that’ll pull me over
every time
--------
SHORE LEAVE
Sunday morning, a week before Christmas…
A whorehouse on a muddy street
in a little border town called Nuevo Progresso…
I’m at the bar drinking Carta Blanca
and smoking those sweet little cigarettes
called Delgados I got hooked on when
I was thirteen because smoking them was like
sucking on peppermint sticks.
My buddy, Toby,
just back from three months Navy boot camp,
is in one of the back rooms, dropping anchor,
so to speak
“Hey!” I’d said when he got off the bus this morning
“How you doing?”
“Shore leave horny,”
he said, and laughed.
So we got in my old Ford
and headed for the border.
Now here we are, him in a back room
with the ugliest whore in the state of Tamaulipas,
me drinking warm beer in a bar
that smells like sweat and dime store perfume.
I’m just beginning to feel sorry for myself,
wishing I hadn’t answered the phone last night,
wishing I hadn’t gone to the bus station this morning ,
when he comes out from the back with the whore on his arm
just as four federales come through the front door,
rifles at the ready,
looking for the two yankee drug runners
they’d heard were in town
Oh shit, I think as they come in,
then it’s up against the wall chingaso gringos
and I’m saying, “For crissake, take it easy Toby,”
since he’s about three quarters tanked
and not real smart even when he’s sober,
“Don’t get our asses shot off in a whorehouse,” I say,
“cause I’ll never be able to explain it to my mother.”
Two hours later, we leave the bar with fifteen cents
to get back across the bridge and a few new bruises
and haul ass home to drink some Texas beer and talk
about the damndest Sunday morning we ever had
“The worst part,” I say,
“is you lost all your money getting laid by the ugliest
whore in northern Mexico and I’m stuck buying the beer.”
“The worst part,” Toby says, “is I’m still horny.”
--------
CAT DANCE
cat dances brightly through yellow
alley shadows of early afternoon
meow
she murmurs
she crouches
she leaps
death prances lightly through languid
alley shadows of yellow afternoon
--------
GLOW
aspens splash
across the green mountain face,
liquid gold spilled by a painter
intoxicated and made clumsy
by the blue, open sky
and the clear, mountain air
the air shimmers with the flicker
of their fluttering leaves,
as if sunlight
has taken on a physical presence
even the skeptic is moved
by the glory of such creation
if God lives, the skeptic thinks,
he must live here,
bathed forever
in this brief autumnal glow
--------
WINTER COMES AGAIN
there must be fifty year weather cycles,
forces that work across half-centuries,
relationship changes between earth and moon
and the sun and all the other celestial objects
that cause butterflies to flex their wings
in some remote corner of the planet,
pushing new winds across the Arctic,
creating new weather patterns and suddenly
it starts to rain and rain and rain like when I was
ten years old and like it’s been doing
for the past two months,
people on the river flooded out of their homes
for the third time in two months
cool winters made bitter cold by the wet,
then, and now again,
and I feel like some kind of cycle
has been completed in my life
--------
TROLLING
the woman
with very large hair sits
in the bookstore coffee shop
middle-aged,
with a thin, upturned nose
and pouchy cheeks red
with a puff of rouge,
she and her brown tweed
suit are out of place
among the pre-meds,
in their reeboks
and sweat shirts, bent
over their anatomy texts, sipping
their mochaberries and chai
while the Brazilian and the Arab
at table six replay
the world’s greatest chess games,
laughing loudly with delight at every move
she sits in the corner
where she can see everyone
in the room, crossing her legs
over and over again,
right leg over left leg,
then left over right,
over and over again,
knees swinging
in wider and wider arcs
with every shift,
eyes flicking up from her book
with each shift,
watching for someone
to be watching her
and I’m thinking about her hair,
piled in a bun high on her head,
and how long it must be when
she takes it down for the night
--------
IN DARK WATERS
we live in an ocean of time,
like fish swimming in a dark sea
a wake of minutes and hours
bubble behind us, then dissipate
leaving all unchanged but the memory
of those who swam beside us