Five poems by Jake Cosmos Aller

Lost and Found

I was lost
And you found me

You walked out of my dreams
And into my life

And that made all the difference
In the world

As you entered my life

I was all alone in this cruel world
And you provided shelter
And comfort

I did not know what I wanted
And you gave me what I wanted

You gave me meaning
You gave me purpose

You gave me love
And understanding

peace and happiness
Joy, laughter and fun

You were endlessly fascinating
Could not keep my eyes off you

You were the most beautiful women
In the world to me

And you still are
So many years later

Like a fine bottle of wine
Gets better with age

And you gave me
Endless nights of wild love making

Which has gotten better
As well

And I fell under

your spell
from the day, I met you
I was lost
And you found me

And if you go first
I will be lost again

Can’t live without you
By my side

Thus, is has always been
Between us

We are so entangled
So interwoven

And that is the

way
It was meant to me

My Mother’s History

One day many a year ago
My mother spoke to me
About her family’s tangled history

She spoke to me
Of lies, half-truths, and myths
Some of which may have been true
And over the course of the evening
Her history came alive

She was born in hills of North Little Rock
The 10th of 11 children
Of an ancient dying race

The Cherokees who had ran away
The lost tribe of the Cherokees
Homeless since the trail of tears

Refusniks
Refugees who fled in the hills

Rather than join the rest
In the promised land
Of Oklahoma

Her people disappeared
From history’s eyes

They did not exist
I did not exist

My history was over
As was hers

And so, I learned at last
The painful truth

That due to the crimes of politicians
So long ago

My mother’s people
Lost their land, their culture and their hope
And became downtrodden forgotten people

Hillbillies they were called
Living in the hills and mountain dales
Clinging to the dim fading memories

Of their once glorious past
As proud Cherokees

Now no one knew their name
The old ways were forgotten
And the new world never forgave them

And they never forgave the new world
As they lived on
In the margins of society

Forgotten people

And I vowed that if I lived
Their history would not die
As I knew the truth

And I would become a proud
Cherokee
And make my mother proud of me
And my accomplishments

And so, when I am down and out
I recall her stories and her warnings
And realize it is up to me

To live my life
To let the Cherokee in me
Live his life

And in so doing
My mother’s history does not die

It lives on in me
Until the day I die

Long live the Cherokee nation
Long live my mother

Conversation with Teddy Roosevelt

One morning I woke up in the White House
I had been summoned back in time

By a mysterious letter I had received
From my hero, Teddy Roosevelt

The letter
Asked me for my advice

And instructed me to go to the white house with the letter
And so, I went and presented the letter

And went through a back door and found myself
Back in 1904 being presented to the President

We spent the afternoon and evening talking about the future past
And the present in front of us

And we worked out the problems of the world

Then I told him of the future world to come
Of the world wars

Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan
Of presidents to come
And of the great events of the future

And he spoke of his fears
That the future would become a nightmare

Of great powerful corporations
Oppressing the little man

Turning everyone into slaves
To the powers that be

And that he was determined to fight
For the little man

And he hoped that it the end
Freedom would have a chance
To flourish in the world

I left
Not wanting to let him know
That he had failed

That the special interests ruled the world
And that soon the world he knew and love
Would become nothing but the dusty myths of history

And I wondered what had happened
Where we had gone so wrong
And whether we would find our way back

Watching Cats Hunt

Early morning
Watching two white cats
Hunting a white dove

The cats hunt in pairs
Tracking the bird

The bird flies away
Safe for now

And I think about the cats
And the hunt goes on

Such is life
And the fate of cats
And birds

Cats

I often wonder about Cats
What do they think of us
It seems at time
That cats think of humans
As their slaves

We exist to feed them
To comfort them

To save them from their enemies
And to worship them

Yes, cats are an alien species
Totally different from humanity
Detached, and almost evil

If we ever encounter an alien civilization
God help us if it’s a cat based civilization

We would then be engaged
In the epic mother of all wars

As cats and humans would not get along
The cats would think we were their slaves

And we would resent and fear them
And secretly worship their alien ways

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department in ten countries – Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Korea, India, St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent, Spain, and Thailand. and traveled to 45 countries during his career. Jake has been an aspiring novelist for several years and has completed four novels, (Giant Nazi Spiders, “the Great Divorce” and “Jurassic Cruise”, and is pursuing publication. He has been writing poetry and fiction all his life and has published his poetry fiction in over 25 literary journals. Jake grew up in Berkeley, California.

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