Allen Itz is a second-life poet originally from South Texas, moving slowly over the years from a small town on the border to San Antonio and the Texas hill country. He began as a writer in the late 1960's, published a few poems, then quit writing for nearly 30 years. He returned to poetry when he retired for the first time fourteen years ago and has since published numerous poems in various on-line and print literary journals. He has one print book, "Seven Beats a Second," published in 2005. His first EBook, “Pushing Clouds Against the Wind” was published early in 2011. Since then he has published three additional poetry EBooks and, most recently, an EBook of short stories, “Sonyador (The Dreamer)”. All of his EBooks are available wherever electronic books are sold. He also publishes a weekly poetry and arts blog, “Here and Now” featuring his own work as well as the poetry of many other poets current and past. His blog is found at http://herenow.7beats.com.
Fall 2012
Table of Contents - Vol. VIII, No. 3
Poetry Fiction Translations Reviews
Allen Itz
Inspired by Alice Folkart's "Pretending"
a poem reminds me
of the fragility of beauty,
how it comes upon us
unbidden
then passes on, like life,
no one asks to be born
but when we are,
we hang on to life
like a vain woman chases
beauty...
knowing the rules
of death
and aging, the end
always on the periphery
of our vision, but always denied
until it’s our own throat
circled by the gray,
stinking hand
of fate’s forever
embracing...
we pretend
we do not notice
the shadows
approaching--
the pretense that keeps life
worth living until
the very
end,
when pretense
can no longer hold back
the black curtain’s
closing
as dark night overtakes us
the darkest night ever
forever
© Allen Itz
