Poetry: Selections from Allen Seward

brown bottled beer
 
the rain starts to come down outside
and I look out the window
as I grab my brown bottled beer
and find that the bottle is empty.
 
I’ll need another.
 
that’s just the way it goes,
isn’t it?
 
if you want to take this
for what it is
then it’s nothing, or
nearly nothing.
 
the clouds are nothing.
 
the rain is nothing.
 
but as the rain starts to come down
outside, I look out the window
and reach for my brown bottled beer
and find that the bottle is empty.
 
I’ll need another.


my poetry
 
the poems are getting shorter.
 
the short fiction is getting shorter.
 
the minds are getting shorter, too,
maybe…
 
if we were not technological beasts
a few years ago, ten years ago maybe,
then we are now…
 
word limits, line limits,
I don’t want to write an epic
but I’d like a page or two, or three.
 
I suppose I can’t blame them though:
 
I don’t think I’d want to read
two or three or more pages
of my poetry either.



#talkallnight
  
everyone wants to talk
or no one wants to
 
talk too much,
talk too loud,
say nothing at all
 
talk to gods and saints
talk to lovers
talk to ourselves
 
say what you want
to the other end of
the phone
 
but we are not in
conversation,
not really
 
we enjoy the sounds
of meaning
much more
than we enjoy
the meaning itself
 
everyone wants to talk
and we’ve forgotten
what silence is really
like, the tinnitus
doesn’t help
 
and on it goes like this
until it doesn’t go on
anymore, one day
preferably far off,
at all times
far off
 
we’ll wake up in the dark
of the next life,
hear nothing,
and start to scream.



while listening to Tom Waits
 
words cut the stone
and
the children all grab
their knives
 
blood blood blood, out out out,
 
trees worry out the sunlight
waiting for
a
rain
 
but rain won’t come for
three-
or-
four days.
 
the wind blows. it’s chill.
 
the TV’s
there
talking in the other room
 
a draft
comes in through
one
of the windows
 
I look out the window
and
see a brood of
those children
swinging their knives in
the
white sunlight
all of them wearing
red
shirts by now
 
and they’re coming
my
way.



zone of empty
 
for all your visits to the dentist
and all the gold
in your mouth,
 
how could your smile be so cheap?
 
you have entered a zone
of
empty
 
and found that you like the way
it makes your voice sound,
 
you like the look of being
the tallest
person there,
 
and the only voice, too.
 
now to find something
to
prop your
foot on…



the atheists
  
there are no atheists
in
foxholes,
 
smugly
say
those who
cry
 
catch for us the foxes!
the little foxes!
 
the foxes must
be
put to death
for the
sake of
our
wine!
 
catch for us the poets,
they should
say,
 
for we will drain
your
vineyards dry.





Allen Seward is a poet from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. His work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, DEDpoetry, JAKE, and Buffalo (x8), and his chapbook sway condor is available on Amazon thanks to Alien Buddha Press. He currently resides in WV with his partner and four cats.

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