Jed Allen

The Real Question

You won't know me, not at first, if
in fact you show, it's late, I've changed, old
greasy coat, no underwear, hair falling out
while poem-spit dribbles
down my chin: oh no you won't be sure, dead
sure that what you see before you
in the dreaming door is what you've sought,
you call it Soul or Self or Higher Power-Good God!
and here it is, or I am, to hell with names
though neither they nor it nor I
intend you harm, we never have,
though we may have spooked
you, true enough, in the past, badly, you must
forgive us: how far Doubt drags us till we holler Stay!
But what is sure
is I'll unnerve you, like blood
blooming where it shouldn't: you'll stall
in the yard, stoned (still) and knocking
your heels till night descends
and your starry questions
rise, the old doozers, the dancers---Was darkness first?

Does God dream? Does Evil ever sleep?
Just what is justice anyway? Fork
on the right? Knife on the left? Huh?
Does anyone hear? Miserere! You are
so dear to me!
Still.
But it's your poem and you'll look
surprised, as if there were some other
life you'd rather live, though it's you
who called, you did, left hand
dialing while the right plays dumb, can we meet,
gotta talk, and I knew you were in the neighborhood,
sirens and fuckyous and shattering glass, the human
music, and now you're here, again, and I implacably
in front of you, I may even be inside, yes, high
in the skull lodge, that close, shawled in smoke
and smut, at the eye-caves peering out, watching
the road, trying to write it down without deceit,
with nothing but the plainest words and the small
music they sometimes make---your best voice, you know it,
booming but kind, cuffless, quavering,
whereas I can only scratch it here, on glassy air,
in dwindling light---shivering now and nothing, not
a sound, are you coming, you called, you

said it's urgent, damn it, who,
WHO, ring it now with your whole voice, the real
question, the bone of it, the bloody bone, you've
got it, go on, at last, ask it, yes, jesus, is it
Love you want, is it Love in your face, Love waiting,
you calling, confused, confounded, cursing, it is urgent,
yes, can you see me, here, hands out, in the dark,
it is always urgent, always begging, always now---

Copyright © Jed Allen, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.