Five Poems by R. A. Allen
Reaping the Tourbillion
Originally published in Pear Noir! (2010)
While drowsing over things French,
I discovered that the
watchmaker Breguet
invented a gizmo called
the tourbillion in 1795
to thwart the influence
of gravitational forces
on the inner workings
of pocket timepieces.
A girl I once knew
countered the effects
of my gravity
with stabbing wit, saying,
"In a parallel universe,
you could be my mother,"
thereby sealing her
escapement to new worlds
and new loves. A spiraling
rocket, she flew beyond
my telescopic range,
leaving me to ponder
the tourbillion anew.
Road Hazard
Originally published in Icebox Journal (2015)
The car suddenly veered off the
road and we came to a sliding halt
in the gravel.
—Hunter S. Thompson,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Unmapped and unmarked,
it's soaking the highway,
interrupting your daydream
about arriving on time.
Silver-blue and shimmering,
it just needs some boats.
You scold yourself
for rank gullibility
as if, on all fours
while crawling through cacti,
you were croaking for water,
dying to believe.
It's only light warped by heat,
one of God's trompe l'oeils.
Still, you tap the brakes
as tire treads sing
on the centerline.
Old Girl
Originally published in Gravel: A Literary Journal (2016)
Canceled sales call
one county over
left me with time
to pay my respects.
Not only does
the train not stop
here anymore,
a marker says
they closed
the line the year
you were born.
In the TV-repair shop's
window a poster
demands "Vote Yes!"
Maybe it advocated
pulling the plug
on the whole
shooting match.
Like you, this
town has passed.
Its streets are full
of no one to ask.
I find the churchyard
by sighting a steeple
against a gravy
of stratocumulus.
And there among
the statuary and
the leaning marble
stelae you lie
limned in weeds
but still petite.
Drop a plastic primrose
and be on my way.
You were my first.
I reckon I owed you.
Carping
Originally published in The Brooklyner (2011)
In the settlement
you took everything
but left me
the house
the kids
the cars
the furniture
the boat
the money
the intangibles.
Something has been snatching the koi
from our garden pond. I suspect
a heron. All day I watch from
the blind of our bedroom window
but never see the culprit.
Could it be a night heron?
Or are you slyly haunting me,
harpooner of my heart?
I sit on the curb
after a summer cloudburst
watching the steam rise off the asphalt.
Gray runoff swirls around my ankles
laden with butts and bits of plastic—
the detritus of an urban Oz.
All our koi have disappeared.
My U-boat loafers are kaput.
Perhaps it was a raccoon.
Virga
Originally published in Turbulence (2012)
At the party, I
hovered near your circle
and heard you say
you liked the News
on Channel Nine.
Hoarding your opinion,
I made it my own.
A weather front is coming
to our adjacent zip codes.
Nine's weatherman is a
Certified
Broadcast
Meteorologist
in a three-button suit.
He enjoys explaining things.
"Virga" is a favorite—
about how it's rainfall
that never quite lands.
Conditions are intact
for a virga event
this very evening.
He could be talking about my
love for you with this virga.
I project my love-thoughts
to the GPS coordinates
of your house, where you sit
watching the weather report
with your own beloved, never
knowing that my ardor is dying
three feet above your roof.
R. A. Allen's poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, RHINO Poetry, The Penn Review, B O D Y, The Hollins Critic, Glassworks, and elsewhere. He is a Pushcart nominee and has one Dzanc Books Best of the Web nomination for fiction. He lives in Memphis and was born on the same day that the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism: December 26th. Learn more about R. A. Allen here.
