Sample Poems by Allen Ireland

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Decoy

Whenever I see it, pink and fake,
Floating on a pond or lake,
I feel a little envy-ache.

It drifts without a rudder.
It bears no memory of a martyred mother.
And evil couldn’t make it shudder.

Nor does it lose a single quill
Attracting birds that hunters kill,
With sly eye and smirking bill….

O to be that swan, with never
A sore foot or a ruffled feather,
And head unbowed no matter what the weather!

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On the Plains

One freezing day in January
A hooded woman on the lifeless prairie
Walking, solitary.

Her proud, gaunt face
Seemed in this stark place
Like the lone remnant of some ancient race.

Two unleashed dogs were with her,
Brown as prairie grass in winter.
She stood, a statuary figure,

On a high swell against the louring sky….
Then she was gone, and only I
Remained, crestfallen, with continuing eye.

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Two Trees

Left in the cold outdoors, misshapen, stunted,
It is the Christmas tree that no one wanted.
Nature looks to have taken pity on it;
The snow she sent, at first as dull as dust,
Now sparkles like tinsel off its frozen crust.
She’s even hung some homemade ornaments:
A crinkled oak leaf, barely hanging on,
Has just unhooked itself and drifted down
To settle where the fir-tree snags have caught it,
And there are other limbs where leaves have blown.
And look! A bright-red cardinal flies far
From its warm nest, and perches on the crest
To play the role of angel or of star.

The tree’s owner, a fragile white-haired lady,
Stands and studies the crooked evergreen,
Her window like a mirror in between….

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Lighthouse Murder

It offered light that was as boldly bright
As evening star or satellite.
But now it’s ancient, dusky, hollow-eyed,
A piece of local history
Preserved by some society.

To one who’d grown up in its scope,
Who’d given up on life and hope,
It seemed as purposeless as he.
They’d lost their lights concurrently….

It was a cold, bleak sea.
He stood beneath his eyeless friend
And heard her voice upon the keening wind:
“I might have saved a ship or two
From wrecking on a bar or bank,
But I could not save you….
I lit the night, the world. Now look at me:
I can’t do anything but be.”

“Goodbye,” he said, then sank
And lay down in the darkness of the sea.