Writing

Welcome to my writing page

I have been writing poetry on and off since highschool, but in the last three years or so that I've become immersed in writing.

What you'll find here are links to various writers, publishers and journals. Many of them are friends who have encouraged me and helped me grow as a writer.

You'll also find my own work here and, where permission has been granted, the works of others.

The Fib Review is an online journal for Fibonacci style poetry edited by Mary-Jane Grandinetti of Muse Pie Press. Fib Review #6 contains the only (so far) poem I have had published. It is a thrill when a writer of any genre sees their first work published somewhere. I hope you enjoy it.

Poets write about many things about which they are passionate, mainly love and romance. I'll leave off those subjects for the moment and move to two others about which I feel strongly, violence against women and the sol called "honor" killings of young women of certain cultures. I will let the following poems speak for me.

Stop

        The women lie to themselves
        about the bruises and broken bones,
        the cuts and scrapes their
        so called loving husbands give them.
        And then they lie again about
        what a good man he is while trying
        to cover the bruises with makeup,
        making up lame excuses
        about why he did it.
        The little girls cower in fear when
        daddy comes to their room
        when mommy is away
        and touches them in all the wrong places,
        giving them scars that will never heal
        and even though mommy knows,
        she won't say
        because she doesn't want her man
        to beat her
        or leave her
        and take her little girl away,
        but it's already too late for that
        because they're gone
        down that dark alley
        and there's no returning for them.
        The parents
        killed their daughter.
        Because they say she defiled
        their family,
        their religion.
        Their God says stone her
        she's only a woman,
        and she blasphemed.
        But the real blasphemy
        is believing all that crap,
        and murdering their own daughter,
        their own flesh and blood,
        whose only crime was that she wanted
        to be free and to love a man
        not of their religion.
        Other women cry themselves
        to sleep and have nightmares
        about the men who violated them
        again and again.
        The men they picked out of the lineup
        but who they couldn't prove actually
        did rape them and who they are now afraid
        will come after them
        for telling the police,
        for taking them to court,
        and they don't know
        what to do,
        where to go,
        who to turn to because
        the police can't help
        and the courts can't help
        and they whimper at every sound
        that comes out of the dark to wake them,
        and they shake with fear,
        and they drown in their tears.
        When is all the going to stop?
        It is senseless.
        There's no reason to treat our wives,
        mothers,
        sisters
        and daughters like this.
        We have to put an end to it.
        We have to just stop.

Craig Allen
© June 2010

Aqsa Parvez

774
for Aqsa Parvez - 1991- 2007

        Sixteen years old,
        now buried in a place
        that should have afforded
        her the freedom to grow.
        Like a flower taken out
        of the constrictions
        of a too small pot
        and planted in a wide
        field she began to stretch
        petals toward a loving sun,
        slowly beginning to realize
        her dreams and desires.
        But this is not how she
        was expected to behave.
        raised within the confines
        of a belief system that makes
        all women subservient chattel.
        They are slaves, property,
        fit only to bear children
        not allowed to think beyond
        the certain rudimentary
        understanding of their place
        in a society that chains them
        with a religious ardor that
        chooses to destroy rather
        than simply accept that which
        does not fit within their narrow
        view of the universe.
        So they turned against her,
        accusing her of embarrassing
        the family, turning away from
        their god, their way of life,
        not understanding that each
        must be allowed to find their
        own way through life. But she
        was denied life.
        Claiming a god given right,
        her brother killed her, strangled
        her until all breath left her
        and her glassy eyes stared
        unseeing, holding one
        final question: Why?
        Her father condoned the act.
        Her mother and sisters praised
        a brother who would murder
        his own sister who wanted
        nothing more than to grow
        into something greater than
        she was. A brilliant flower,
        standing tall in the sunlight,
        kissed by the breezes, coloring
        the world with her beauty.
        They call it an honor killing,
        and the field lies bare and desolate.
        No bright flower smiling at the sun.
        only the lies they have sown.
        Now, instead of flowers, the sun
        shines on a small, bronze plaque,
        that doesn't even bear her name.
        Only a number to mark who she was.

This site maintained by Craig Allen.
corun AT medievalist DOT org
Last modified 3 August 2010.
Unless otherwise stated
All material and content on this site is
Copyright 2010, Craig Allen