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Best Poems Written by Allison Ballard

Below are the all-time best Allison Ballard poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Baking Chocolate

For shame I write again
And indulge your memory 
Doting on you baselessly,
As though you’re a man
For shame, I have no remedy

Because as a child, I could never know
And as I am, you couldn't trust my word
That I know you and I know hardship
Because while there was always milk for me
You are have always been
 baking chocolate

And though I didn't know how unpleasant it would be
I faithfully escorted that dry dust to my mouth
Because you already owned me, 
and my passion was arcane
I forfeited to you
To become fortitude, your stronghold
I gladly wed the night; I gladly wed your savagery
Soliloquies decorating the shrine in my heart
For you, my one good thing 

I have no capacity to abandon
And I don’t know how to love conservatively 
And as easy as spitting you out could be
I let you fester, 
I let you make a home in me 

But even now, I can still taste you in my mouth, 
Where years should’ve made you disappear
 And you’re nauseating
You’re the bitter product of bitter chocolate
I’m older now
 and my youth won’t erase you
Nor passing moments, nor justified rage
 And my heart is empty plastic
In my own hands
And  you marauded me

I hate you more than there are words for
My resilience has long melted away
Yet you always have a hand on me
And I can’t make you leave

Eternal sunshine’s burning me
My lips remember, my lips grieve

For shame,  I can’t forget you…

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

You Missed Me

At the glassy gate, I wait for you
adding cherry between breaths
adding robes to your soft name
ushering the syllables through my warm mouth
echoing like the sight of a star
on my heart, your name is woven and sewn
like the stitching in my baby blanket
and the baby hands that find your beating chest
I am bound to you
and you, to my gates
 
But then,
you see the blood on my posts
and then,
my eyes stern and welled,
fixed like the sun, you spin
as night hunkers over you
like a broad toothy uncle
pulling you aside, arms slung like sandbags
impressing you with fools gold
teaching you to gawk, painting me a circus
causing you not to see me,
hiding my heart beneath my chest
and this smooth skin, my red wine gates…
 
 And no matter how I call, the tracks will lay, the wheels will fall
 
I would cry but it’s too late… the station’s gone…
 
You missed me love,
you missed me…

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Wrists

The sharp edge 
catches the light on my
wrist like a bangle that was 
meant to be there

The blade has teeth but
doesn't smile
it just knows, it just understands
me
and my shaking fingers

like a servant 
it will do as I ask
like a slave
there is no choice
like a friend 
it loves me more than others
who find themselves
on the opposite side
of my locked
bathroom door

And now I call, now I let fall
all of the change
I would never see come to pass
I hold tight to the razor edge
and bury it through my vanishing skin
I can't win, but I will be here
fighting back the world
with a leaking heart

Which spills off my arms...
onto a desensitized, white floor

This is my door, my way
my red choice forming pools
around my fallen, slumped hands

I just want to be understood
I just want to show
all this color within

And you can have it now
I give you all of me
colorless and empty

Since now I finally make it right
I've finally saved 
my
life...

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Just For a Moment

Maybe I’m a bit too foolish
As I lay here, stretched like a canopy
Next to you and your ripened mouth
Your soft face, a gentle benediction
It’s something I only imagined
before today
 
If you were to look at me
You’d see me blinking
hard and often
My eyes surprised, each time
 to see your face,
that object of a dream
 
That single goal I was sure to fail
That single fire in my heart
That was simply meant to die
To be put to rest, to be forgotten
 
And even when I trace my fingers
Along the grooves of your healthy hands
I’m lost, I just can’t believe it
I wonder if I’ve been deceived
But yes, you’re here. And no, it’s not a dream
And all my assurances crash like a tsunami
In my formerly vacant heart
 
I am amazed and I am taken
And at least for the moment
You’re my robe to wear
I have you and you have me
Just for this fleeting day
And even that’s ok
 
Maybe you will be that prodigal son
Sure to have his homecoming
When you notice how I delve into you
How I chase you, how deep I run for you
Decorating myself with the color of your heart
Chasing your passions like my own
Keeping your image close at hand
 
Or maybe you won’t be that man
Because night may be faithful to fall
To push me down the stairs
Of my great hope for you
For the completion of all that
I wished so badly to have
A year ago, but now as well
 
Maybe I’ll have to accept it a thousand times over
That you are a bird, and I am only another tree
Forever outstretched to catch you,
to be a place where you could rest
where you could build a happy home
Even if just for a moment
 
Maybe I’m a bit too foolish
Maybe I prefer to be discontented
But for the moment
And all moments to come,
I prefer you.

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

La Isla Sets Me Free

Amor, you allude like a cloud
To something great
Your name, a promise of Jerusalem
Your exclusive mouth, like water
on my dry lips and deeply vacant chest…
 
I’ve never touched a cloud
Nor known the inevitable fog
Of falling into you
But now that I know…
 
You’re not even Tel Aviv to me
Nor San Juan, nor Bayamon
You’re a makeshift castle
A colonizer
Pressing your smooth arms
Tight around my shrugging native heart
 
At the chance
I offered my hair, my amber perfume
I made my eyes a place to bathe
Your obviously filthy feet
Offhandedly, you spoke of the sea
But all I see- is violence in your city
You spoke of passion as though
It’s synonymous with love
But I see fatherless children
You’re not that man who saves
But the tide which takes me away…
 
A convincing title
A bait and switch
A hook for virgin lips
And now I’m a bud among weeds
That are due to be cut down
 
You are among me
Take your shot now
Since I know you shoot me down
Leave me alone, cabron-
You always leave me wanting
And I’m not fighting anymore
I’m dancing on the shore, Puerto Rico
This is my story, here
And la isla sets me free

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Home

Isabel, the southern sea
Was kind to me, was motherly
Like home and cotton sheets

She had a still way about her
 With tiny tumbling waves 
Like Kiari’s dream, a reverie
She settled into me

Like a full stomach 
And well- deep dark eyes
She sent me to my knees
She makes me shy
She makes me weak
Her sun has got a hold on me 
cast out over the sea
And now that sun has captured  me
My illaudable life
Shaking like a leaf
At the thought
That this could be

For me

Adjuntas, trees, Boriquen coquis
dons my dirty life in robes
Restores my golden crown
And there, the air,
Could mend the tear 
My inner shredding
My broken ground

What have I found?
Puerto Rico, Isabel
What have you for me now?

Oh Beauty, move me
Lift me like a stain
Give me a piece of your name
To carry you and love you as I can
Find me running, 
Buscame…
Find your name in my heart
Isabel’s son, my sun
Sigue, Sigue, corro por ti!
There’s nowhere I’d rather be
Than at your feet.
Following
The southern sea, the beach

Make a home for me….

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Spaghetti

A click, click 

and the burner lights

tonight

I am not going anywhere 

but the end of the hall where

the broken fluorescent light

can help me cook and write


A red frothy sauce bursts, hot steam

rising up, mist over

a scratched tin pot

a dirty burner hissing, 17 floors

up in the tower with the whistling windows

And a microwave reading 6:58…


But the clock could be slow

and so could this grey day

As though it sarcastically is appealing

to my melancholy stomach

which absentmindedly turns in sync with

the wooden spoon stirring

the steam into submission


I now how to cook a couple of things

and I know a couple of songs very well

I also can cook up a couple of songs 

when called upon

And I do

more often than I ought…


Life

is sort of like the deep red pot

which I try to keep from burning

I try to brown each side of my heart

to keep it from really hurting

But I usually cannot

and today it’s hot

and it’s a bit hard not

to turn the stove off

and bring myself to walk,

away...


I’m just reminiscing 

and mixing in basil leaves

like other things, I try to convince myself

that this won’t be forever

That maybe one day, some venture

won’t lead to the red hot mess

and the seething in my chest

that always results from my best try

to love …


But a couple of leaves can’t do the trick

and nor can happy thoughts

convey, on a grey day in torre

that things will ever go my way


No, I just pray not to think

as I wash the dishes in the sink

which drains the waste of my ambition

down and out, never to be seen


I guess that’s just

how it has to be

Life may not be for me

when I making

Emotional spaghetti

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Pressing On

My demons walk in step 
with my aching legs
knowing where my toes are soft
how heavy last night was
where I might choose to stand
when resolution isn’t mine
they beg me to stay, to be wrong
even when I’m resolved to move
they know my spirit’s name
and that he’ll flex his fingers 
and make them fear
but now, with nothing to lose
they’re here
still, directing my hands
to tap the keys of a minor chord

but even so, 
it’s a beautiful song

it is sufficient, he is gold
even when he’s been clamped shut

I’ve been here
Ligon constantly as my feet
with Elizabeth Arden soaked words
nestled into my wary fist
I’m only wanting more
just to press on while the rest sleep
to feel beautiful again
as opposed to what this was,
a sad story, an error, a night terror
a far cry from 
what you were
pure
amor. 
Y ahora lo se que, de verdad,
te amo.

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Write Me Letters

Write me Peruvian letters
as you let the coffee simmer
on the white washed burner
as you laugh like you would among friends
as you languidly 
cross your brown leather shoes
which meld into the corduroy couch

Rio Piedras owns my taciturn feet
with its piss grey streets
about which I float
like a dirty napkin
waiting to be stuck
like a fish in  a net
waiting to join 
my egg shell heart
which forever feels the crunch
of its misdirection

I'm like a kite full of holes
or the trimmed ends of a rose
what I bear is not beautiful

and even so, it's all I have
it's all I am...

the child of an arcane god
mistress of mistake
an empty soul
with not a single word
to fill me

So write me Spanish letters
between Santiago and Quito
pressed with coffee rings in the pages
like all the darkness in my eyes
I can't fight
I just need something more

to run from...

Details | Allison Ballard Poem

Father

My narrow spine draws up
like a creaking cold floor
cornering confines, facing vacancy
While my father is as a sharp rain that
pounds down on my skin, grey tin
a shed to my life and its
sticky alcoholic stew
like a Jew, cemented sorrow 
and in my shoe, a dead furnace
 
It's better to be alive
but this reality's hard to wake up to
If my mouth was blue
and wore blood's debut
I 
could be 
viewed
at least this day
before I cut my father's heart
in two.
 
But his tears reach me
even near my torrential eyes
and they burn clean like
acidic water's guise, my lies
fall away like flies
I have nowhere to hide
and I've certainly tried
I can only blink back
without excuse and cry
 
My father loves me fiercely, dearly
and clearly, my disease holds no hostage
he washes my toxic heart with cool hands
not an eye for the grime, but for me,
a child, marred by fire,
his very object of caution
but he makes me a wound
set to heal, so I kneel
awake in a wake
my father's grace.