Forget Me, You're Not an Artist Allison Jenks Poetry

local_library Forget Me, You’re Not an Artist

by Allison Jenks

Published in Issue No. 4 ~ July, 1996

This morning is illusive
in its hues and hollows.

I know that later
roasting stars will hang
evenly with inspiration,

Then I’ll decide
I love my nightmares of
horse’women with webbed eyes
Piling fast toward naked men

Damn I think of you though
At the worst times
In a good moment
Finally with native igloo eyes
like I wanted.

Full of incoming mettle
Seeing inside me
not responding to me
but actually catching me
and dissolving me into
His ways.

Your styles were always an attempt at
however mine seemed and
you’d try to catch
on but you could have
just remained you.

You and your stability
are so antique.
Wrong for the terms of now.
but that’s what you’re about.

Brewing emotions yourself
You decide how to feel
I have no choice.

You could have walked me
through my lifetime
if only you could feel

the power of illusion
like you understand it.
Know me as wide as you watch me.

We’d be okay then
certainly
It’s just not in you though
is it

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Allison Jenks' poems have appeared in : New Orleans Review, Art Times, Wisconsin Review, American Literary Review, and Midwest Poetry Review. She was a James A. Michener fellow, awarded by John Balaban, at the University of Miami's M.F.A. program, where she was Editor In Chief of Mangrove.