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.

A Later Draft

*

Every crumpled page says the same thing;

Once there was a man who needed nothing.

so let me start again.

having broken my bones against the wall,

which was again unmoved; having pulled

a thousand mornings in through a cigarette

I concede, to the blank page in a still typewriter.

that I must abandon revision, for a new draft,

to find the words which I’ve worked to polish dead.

Tell the real beginning now or the false one forever.

Tell what you’ve hidden, what your shadow says;

Once there was a boy who needed one thing.

                            
                                   -Brent Allard

Reclamation

*


Don't mind the ashes.
We aren't the first
to kick through ruins.
When the roof collapsed,
the light improved--
Shouldn't we use it?
Find one thing unscathed
hold it in hand, smell it, study,
until it's burned into your eyes.
When you're sure you'll never
forget the shape, leave it.
You won't return.
Someday it will be
the only thing that matters.

Corollary

*

The  skyline

over the tablelands

makes the sunset seem

limitless,

a universe

unto itself.

“Proof,” you say

“of a painter’s hand.”

I say the sun,

is larger than it looks,

yet a dust mote

compared

to the distance

between us.

Now look,

out there,

across the dirt,

as far as you can see.

Those specks

against the hills

are buffalo.

                           -Brent Allard

Close Cover Before Striking

*

He ripped one out and struck it,

watched it flare up like a brand new dream,

sucked the flame through his cigarette.

It burned until all that remained, was the bit

between his fingers, which he flicked out the window;

another useless plaything for the wind.

                           

                                   -Brent Allard

Setting Up the Carnival

*

They’re bolting parts together,

and putting down the power lines.

I’m sure there’s nothing new.

But, driving by reminded me

of the cotton candy,

blue for me and pink for you.

We went on all the rides together, 

because you said  "there’s nothing sadder

than a girl alone on the Ferris wheel."

I spent ten dollars on darts

to win the Led Zeppelin mirror,

and I knew how heroes feel.

It rained a little but we didn’t care.

We laughed, so happy then.

                            

                                  

                                  -Brent Allard

The First Taste of Smoke

*

My first cigarette was stolen.

Jim’s father kept cartons in his truck

and never counted the individual packs.

Behind the garage, we took our first drags

of that death reserved for grown-ups.

In a picture of my father,

he has a cigarette in one hand

and helps me to stand with the other.

I found it easy to smoke them.

And the cigarette stubbed out,

for my first kiss reminded me of that.

so I kissed her, but too hard.

She was afraid of the urgency in my lips,

my futile attempt at communication.

I wanted to tell her everything,

how I missed my father,

how good it was to light a cigarette

when he couldn’t anymore.

She couldn’t get that from a kiss

so she ran away from me.

The first time making love was like that too,

trying to make my body say everything

about every first time I’d ever known,

but all my inexperienced thrusting,

was doomed to saying nothing,

so I lit a cigarette and walked away.

                                      -Brent Allard

Lip Service

*

You wave your magic hands

as if you can heal when you want to.

As if given the inclination, you could open

the coffin lid, and raise him up,

as soon as you said “Come forth.”

You say that you knew him, as if you remember

that one communion twenty seven years ago.

But you don’t need to know him. You have the notes.

You talked with mother, father, brother.

So when you say he’s “pitching” for us,

you expect us to smile

thinking, isn’t that just like him?

Some of them believe you. They buy your white robes

and your whitening hair. They admire the way you sprinkle water

and the verses you hand selected from condolences in your

holy official concordance.

But I don’t see him in your speech or in your verses,

I think it’s too late to baptize or anoint him.

The clearest fact, is that you didn’t know him, and

no one who did has influenced your notes.

Kind Father, Intercessor, Matchstick Man


                           
                                      -Brent Allard

Station Wagons

*





I try to remember one specifically, whether it was yellow or blue or brown,

the one was that took us to New York and then was never seen again?

Which one took us to Disney World, stopping every three hours for oil?

Which one had paneling to match our living room?

They’re all the same now. They blend and I can’t distinguish.

It doesn’t matter which had burn holes in the carpet

behind the backseat, where we would sleep,

or which rear window shattered and woke me in glass,

because no recollection could make one good car of the parts.

 
-Brent Allard

An Approximate Answer

*




At eight the train pulls through, announced by its brutal horn.

The trail behind grows louder, the rumbling of the cars

against their tracks, a rough release of mourning.



I can’t ignore it where I am. I hear the alarm

as if it were on my nightstand. Soon it will fade

and I will go back to myself. I don’t deny that it’s hard



to say what that is. Nevertheless, we burn through days

as if there will always be more. Only, tonight I doubt

the number. I question the stars and even the haze



between us. My life must make that sound

I think, a train pulled over tracks, not by any grace

but rather force and fear of leaving something out.



So how do I answer you, how do I speak to evening’s face,

You ask where I go when my eyes elude you.

What can I say, when I don’t have a name for that place



that makes nowhere and here, at once, both true.

And why do I answer now, why, when you’re not even here?

Because the question wasn’t asked or meant strictly for you.



I was there and involved in the asking, so need to hear

where it goes. And now, because I am a part of everything,

I hear the church clock chime the hour and disappear



so cars in the street can be heard. And then he sings,

some drunk, up to a shuttered window, and the closing of doors

behind people coming home. But what do I bring



with my listening? Why have I not answered you before.

Where do I go? Where. Listen, a song is playing in the distance,

building to the clouds and crashing to the floor.



I get caught in it’s travels, turns, the interludes, the twists

and sometimes I truly believe that it won’t end,

because I am too beaten to even raise my fist.



I have had enough of mourning, and so pretend

that it doesn’t touch me. I watch where this is heading

as if it were the second act of a play I watch again.



Because it is. Still, I want to be surprised, instead

of always knowing how much will be lost

in between the sounds and what is said.

 
 
                                 
 
                                               -Brent Allard

September Drive

*




Everyone on the road tonight


is nodding at the wheel.

The darkness is a vapor settled on

the windshield. Headlights can’t pierce

the fog that swallows daylight, pulls

away the hours much too early.



I have this conversation with

myself. Night on the Everett

Turnpike will not listen; its silence, more black

than the tar. I’m wedged between shades of

darkness. From the passenger’s seat,

you trust me to know where I am

going and would listen if I turned

to you and said, “It’s dark tonight,”

or “I think I’ve been lost since

the morning I was born,” and if

I said “The night is a raven’s

eyelid, closed.,” tonight, on this road,

you could get it.



you’d give me a look that says, “No,

that isn’t crazy.” The other

cars traveling this stretch of road,

mercifully, are quiet, except

for their wheels pulling up against road;

another mile- another mile- another mile

towards home.

 
 
      -Brent Allard

Habit

*


You remembered cigarettes

after the names for things were gone,

you still had the two fingered gesture,

although you couldn’t light it or lift it to your mouth.

The hospital let it go, in certain cases.



You clung like an injured mountain climber

gripping a ledge halfway down the face,

too weak to scale your way back up,

and nothing to ease you down.

No help coming,

couldn’t reach you if it was,

although everyone said

“Expect miracles.”

and they paraphrased

that bible verse about

the faith of a mustard seed

moving mountains.

And I thought, move it all you like,


it’s still the same mountain.

But looking at you,

a painted skeleton, minus teeth

I did expect a miracle.

I asked whatever it is that listens

to prayers and pleadings

that you would notice your fingers

still clutching the shelf out of habit,

and tell them this once to let go.


                                         -Brent Allard

Just Before the Sky Fell Down

*





She twirled in the Santa Ana winds

like a satellite finding its orbit in the driveway.

The Eagles Greatest Hits played for the fifth time in a row

because letting it play was easier than finding another album

that everyone drinking could tolerate.

She really liked singing along to Desperado.

You felt indestructible, even knowing that when reality

returned, the woman you watched would be someone else’s wife.

But it could wait. Let it wait. Let it hang there like the moon.

No need to even mention it.



You couldn’t blame the alcohol, because you drank

yourself sober long before, and can’t pretend

you didn’t know what was coming, when she stepped back

inside, the wind still whispering around her, remarked that

the stars had brought you here, and then looked in your eyes,

and said oh so seriously, that infidelity isn’t a problem

but a symptom of a problem,

and you, of course, agreed.

 
              
                              -Brent Allard

Miles Between Exits

*




Tom Joad carries a five gallon gas can,

towards the dropping orange sun.

Jesus looks to Tom and says “I’ll take it for awhile.“



They walk along the shoulder,

framed by shadowy finger clouds.

Sirens blare threats in the distance.



Tom hands the can to Jesus,

and nods a thank you,

his arm already feeling light enough to float.



Jesus feels the strain,

in his purpled eye, cheekbone

still stinging from the billy-club.



Wincing, Jesus says,

“It's like we never stop walking”

Tom replies, “I know, but we’re almost there.”



and wonders how best to tell Jesus

that the gas gauge in his Chevy

doesn’t work.

   

            -Brent Allard

Single Serving

*after Edward Hopper's Automat

It's not such a terrible thing
to be alone, except for those
nights when the coffee is lousy,
but you drink anyway, because
no one would hear you complain.

This is a night of wearing down,
of ticking, of erosion becoming visible.
Call it a blue table night of the soul.
Even if someone occupied
the chair across from you,
What would you tell him; that
you've dreamed a life of circles
and lived one in squares?

He would say; "look into your
cup. Rest your head on the
table. The lights will keep you
safe, and when you wake
it will all be true."


         -Brent Allard

“CHEAP,” I SAID, “AND IT NEEDS TO GET ME 3,000 MILES.”

*




It got me across the country. In fact I’m still driving it. I’ve already got more than my $800.00 worth. It’s ugly, brown and loud, but I don’t mind. There’s every sort of car out here, rusted out orange Pintos, and new Mercedes Benz’s. They make the movies here, so they’ve got to have all kinds. Some people even walk, like this guy I met yesterday playing country songs on his guitar, next to Jimmy Stewart’s star in the sidewalk. I would’ve given him a buck, if he’d known some Johnny Cash.

But here in the January sunshine, where even the migrant workers smile at nothing all day, what I’m thinking of, is you glancing out the window as the snow falls over Beacon St. You’re curled up in a blanket, watching 80’s movies, letting the telephone ring itself out, though not for Emilio Estevez or Molly Ringwald’s sake, you just can’t break the warm isolation of cable television. You’re not thinking of me.

I didn’t know I was leaving you, until I was on the road at three in the morning with only speeding eighteen wheeler’s to keep me company. I thought, some people do this every day and then head home again. But they must wonder, What if, this time I don’t turn around? They must, because it happens every day. I won’t turn around, and I’ll probably never think of you again like this. I’m just a face you saw a few times, had a few beers with, made polite conversation.

It’s not like I’m sending this to you. I just wondered for a minute, what it would be like to wake up in your bed as you were putting on your make-up to head out the door. Could I have lived there for the rest of my life, or was I always headed here, to this sunny ending, alone in my car at the In and Out Burger drive-thru?



 
-Brent Allard
 
previously published in Slipstream

Nothing Stays Open Late

*




You can’t do what you should,

so you’re sitting in a diner by yourself

at sometime like 2 in the morning,

wondering where it went;

what you had just yesterday,

that life you knew was just about to suit you,

but you couldn’t convince to happen.



You and your pride are the last one’s out,

into a night that feels like a second chance.

Only the stars see you smiling.

Everyone else has gone to bed,

and that’s good, you think,

because you couldn’t breathe in

these hours with an audience.

You couldn’t start again

because they know you.



These stars are out for you alone.

The moon makes even your sadness glow.

This time it’s gonna be different

and everything is really gonna work.



You roll down your windows

and sing out loud to the radio

The air you breathe is telling you

that you are still alive,

lucky to be alive.



The highway and the stars must be in love

and you’re catching how they feel.

It’s all for you tonight.



You wonder how far you could go,

if you pointed your car to the moon,

and kept on driving.

Finally you’d be something beautiful

a guy and his car that vanished in the night

and left a shining.

 
                     -Brent Allard

May Break Our Bones

*





Down all these streets, in all these cars,

we’re safe enough from sticks and stones.

Although none of it feels like it’s really ours,

just so much steel and skin and bones



I’ve wandered through a city,

where streetlights have eclipsed the stars.

Nothing I touch connects with me,

just empty streets and passing cars



Children draw their futures bright.

on plastic tables, soon outgrown.

the use for hope not yet in sight,

still content with sticks and stones.



We never became what we wanted to be.

We stopped too long, comparing scars.

We never saw what we needed to see,

just had a dream, that wasn’t ours.



Tomorrow, all the lights will change

and we’ll repeat what we’ve always known.

But tonight the world is large and strange

A maze of steel and skin and bones



                             Brent Allard

Pioneer

*



You’ve looked for the myth of America

across every state in the union,

and you’re no closer to finding it now

than you were at six years old, looking out

the back window of a station wagon, believing

that corn fields ran under the whole length of the sky.



Now, you know that the highway

hides her broken back. It makes sense

to you, following the crooked spine,

that something  in your gut feels like glass breaking.



You stop for gas and look at everyone

under the bright and unconnected ceiling,

punching numbers, lifting handles, sticking nozzles into tanks

and squeezing. They look at their cars or straight ahead

caught up in movements that don’t require music.



And you can’t help feeling lost

driving out from beneath the lights,

the smell of gasoline still faintly on your hands,

because you know you’ll turn left to get home.

                              
 
                                          -Brent Allard

Two Stories

*


There's a story


of a dark road where a man got lost

so badly he forgot where he was going.

There's another of a bright road

where a woman, also lost

took the wrong directions out.

These are the stories that raised me,

both the same story,

and my best explanation for urgency.

You have your own. I know you do.

But listen; there are only two stories,

Look out your window.

Tell me what they are.


                -Brent Allard