Sure It Will Come to Me Later

*



The litter of our dreams

congests these narrow streets,

makes it hard to get by

without kicking papers around.

We pass through

the blown refuse

and I turn to ask you something

I forget before I find the words

and you want to know what it was-

I meant to say.

Giving my silence a look, as if

I’d committed a crime

and I can only answer,

“I don’t know really-

something, I think-

about time.”

your look turns back

to satisfied,

for now.

-Brent Allard

Answering

*

I stand outside this evening,

watching light pull from the street

like a dress across the floor.

The leaves have started browning,

although some color sticks, and some

slight percentage hasn’t thought to turn.

October is gone, as it always is.

Find me here and ask me where I’ve

come from. Ask me why my whole life

has led to this crack in the sidewalk.

I will tell you everything.

Ask me what should be forgiven,

and what I hold in my left hand. Ask me who I

abandoned and where and when. Ask me if I will

finally confess that secret.

The lamppost will be my witness.

The rain will listen too,

though casually, without comment.

If you can’t stop, then turn your head and notice

before you drive off and forget,

that it’s hard to stand long in one place.

and feel this certain piece of earth beneath your feet,

because when you are this still, all that you were is with you,

Find me here, leaning against the Elm tree.

Ask me what I wanted, what I accomplished.

Ask me about the dream I wanted to have.

And I will tell you what you wanted and

What you never had. I will answer everything

that you already know.

                          -Brent Allard

Your God Answers

*

He spoke with you this morning about

finding another job. He was snuffing out stars

while you talked, taking someone’s baby home

and helping to track down terrorists.

He told you to start selling real estate

and you laughed because for a second,

you thought he was serious.

When you reminded him that

you’re no salesman. He laughed

that you almost fell for it.

Then he opened up your Bible

to the page where he watches sparrows.

As he flipped the pages, he was

sending an earthquake to level 

low income housing, trying to get Pluto

removed from the list of planets,

planting an addendum to the Book of Revelations

in a cave near the Dead Sea,

and other things, he wouldn’t specify.

You sighed in relief that he

could be so many places at once.

                             -Brent Allard

Calling

*

I will stand here and call you

until the wall behind me crumbles.

I know that you will hear me,

because there is a word

that I put inside your name

every time it leaves my mouth;

a word that is nothing on it’s own

and yet so powerful that it

can break and heal

in the same instant.

It doesn’t care about syllables

or distance. It will find you

across the universe,

hidden in a city or a dream.

to deliver your name in my voice.

My cigarette smoke tells this future;

it draws your true face in the air.

Look through my eyes in the moment

that I’ve just kissed you.

There you are love, fearless and whole.

Now Playing

*



Life was the grandest movie.

We sat in our ragged seats

and waited for the future to unfold

this movie, called America,

where nobody has to be poor,

nobody has to stay lonely.

Sure, when the lights came on,

We went back to one check away,

the kids wouldn’t listen, and the car

broke down in the mornings.

Sure, I knew that you never forgave me,

for losing that job with the state, but you

stopped taking your pills. I told you

we couldn’t afford another kid.

Sure, we screamed at each other,

with the kids on my nerves all the time,

(and you never taking my side.)

But, why should we talk about that?

Remember our America,

where nothing gets too bad

and if it does then it’s not for long.

I’ve got this idea for an invention;

a fuel pump that runs your car on dreams. 

I’m going to show it to General Motors.

They’ll give me five million dollars

just to keep it from getting made.

I’ll buy this place then, and you can

fly out to see your mother anytime.

We’ll never go through all this shit again.

The neighbors will watch us come and go.

They’ll say we stepped out of the movies.

                                 

                                        -Brent Allard