Flapper Press is proud to present the poetry of Dee Allen—an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. He's been active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s and is the author of 4 books (Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, and his newest, Skeletal Black—all from POOR Press) and 18 anthology appearances (including Poets 11: 2014, Feather Floating On The Water, Rise, Your Golden Sun Still Shines, What Is Love, The City Is Already Speaking, The Land Lives Forever, and the newest from Los Angeles-based Vagabond Books, Extreme) under his figurative belt so far.
Night Eagle
Dusk hides nothing
From the Night Eagle, himself hidden in the trees,
With feathers & wings of sandy hue,
Bulbous eyes black as his native grove.
Nyctophilian bird
Watches the wildness
In deep darkness,
Observes change in weather & seasons
From the hollows of oaks,
Broad branches of redwoods,
Not a thing escapes his careful,
Penetrating gaze under the stars.
Red men claim the Night Eagle is
The spirit of one of their departed,
Brought back to Earth in avian form,
Protective, insightful, wiser than he was in life—
He gives a sharp chorus of hoots,
Spreads his wings and flies after intruders
On the ground, chasing those field
Rats back to holes within nightly abyss
Before the slow coming of day—
The Night Eagle,
Watcher of the woods, wings of sandy hue, black eyes,
Is my spirit animal
According to
A spinning
Colour wheel
On an iPad
On a table
Under a tent
A pretty blonde
Park Ranger directed me to
During the Stand For The Redwoods
Festival, Yerba Buena Gardens, S.F.—
Colour wheel
Rotated clockwise
By the touch of my index finger on screen,
Then slowed in pace.
Right-side arrow
Landed on
Yellow: Northern Spotted Owl.
I don’t believe in this spirit animal nonsense at all.
But the traits the fabled Night Eagle has—
Vigilance, insight, wisdom—lie in me nonetheless.
Breeder of Flames
Days and nights are dry as bones again
Temperatures are hot as perdition again
The tall grasses are tinder again
The fruit orchards are burning again
The forest groves are burning again
The residents are fleeing again
The daylight is growing hazy again
The smoke is growing unbearable again
Native land is cinder and ash again
Left Coast life
Interrupted because of her
Acting her rage, taking it out
On California
She whom the Tsalagi*
Back east have called
Atsila Unitsi
Mother Fire
Breeder Of Flames
Younger sister
To venerable
Elohi Unitsi
Mother Earth
With a more volatile edge—
Face masque sits
On the shelf
At home from
Her last rampage.
Will it be needed for
These uncertain
Dawns and dusks?
Perhaps the Biblical
Plague of locusts
Or Charles Fort’s
Rain of frogs
May follow—
*What the Cherokee Indians call themselves. Pronounced “Chah-lah-gee”.
If you are interested in more of Dee Allen's poetry, please contact info@flapperpress.com