DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

I have more to say about this little poem than I thought I would. This was the title poem of my first collection, and I’ve used it in both of my big fat (by poetry standards) retrospectives, and when I give a poetry workshop, this

Through Mordor to the Unreal City: A National Poetry Month Post

Defacing the Moon defacing Your ship’s sharpened keel slides across airless seas, blown by the breath of your desires. Those sails stretch like skin to catch the winds of your whimsy, and the keelblade carves crags into cheekbones and eyes. Soon your own face will

Tomorrow, in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m running a series of posts containing selected poems from my 2008 poetry collection, The Journey to Kailash. They’ll appear at 9:30 a.m. every morning for the next 13 days, with a very appropriate choice appearing on the

You could call this the soft announcement of my new homepage. The question I’m answering is, why “Descent Into Light”? Well, because there have always been too many Mike Allens in the world, the phrase “Descent into Light,” snipped from my poem “Phase Shift,” has