Poetry: Selections from Allen Seward

a sunset can look like a frog

as all the artists 

articulate 

their fears, their anxieties, 

their specialties 

a sunset can look like a frog 

and the entire ocean 

can 

be a fish 

but this is not important, 

it 

only matters 

what sweet acid they pour 

into their bellies, 

what noxious fumes they breathe 

and wallow in, 

in what secret places 

they 

found their 

red paint. this 

is 

where 

beauty comes 

from.

the assisted-living home across the street

out the window 

there 

is 

a chainlink fence, 

an ac unit, 

a brick assisted-living home

people come 

and 

go, 

the mulch is red 

in 

the browned 

February grass.

there are cars, too, 

and mailboxes, 

and

passing cars looking for 

somewhere. 

out 

the window, looking in, 

is the big mouth 

of 

the world, 

the gaping thing 

the drooling thing 

the 

laughing thing 

and it looks into me 

as I 

look into it. 

out the window 

is 

a tree wobbling in the 

breeze, and an asphalt 

river.

bukowskean torment

philosophy is a long slow drink, 

the bottom of the glass smiling, 

the ending come, 

the crushed soul gone to sleep

in the belly of the earth. 

Plato is dead. Socrates was invented. 

Descartes is asleep. 

Kant is imagined machinery. 

Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, 

Sartre, even Baudelaire 

for some reason 

all kneel before Alexander the Great 

as he smiles. 

Bukowski imagines wine 

as flowers of evil grow

from every gaping dead mouth.

philosophy is a hangover, 

a smoker’s cough, 

a tub of lukewarm gray

water. 

the Lizard King weeps.

the tower

I

have not seen your face 

since I stopped 

painting 

and I do not care 

I 

have not 

crawled on hands and knees 

in years, 

or wept into open shoes 

in even longer 

the same heel that 

crushed the 

olive also crushed the grape 

but that is not all:

the spinal fluid 

the black cuts 

the bloodshot eyes popped 

like cherries on 

the counter 

and left behind, 

the look behind the curtain 

was the last 

thing I saw. 

I have not seen you 

and I do not miss you 

I do not care about 

you 

but I do 

wait for you.

breakfast beer

sometimes strength 

is 

not 

easy to 

find.

Allen Seward is a poet from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. His work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, Spare Parts Lit, Eucalyptus Lit, and Impspired, among others. He currently resides in WV with his partner and four cats.