EXTENDED REVIEW

Petting the Time Shark and Other Poems by Mike Allen (chapbook)

The first and namesake poem, “Petting the Time Shark,” provides a strong beginning and theme for this collection. The primary idea is to compare the one way arrow of time with the skin of a shark. This description, “An endless line of instants swims past,/interlocking scales, aimed in one direction,” is one of the clearest descriptions of the intractability of time. The poem goes on to use this concrete image to great effect using the shark’s presence and reality to force the reader to confront the unyielding nature of time.

Some of the poems in this collection share the theme of time more strongly than others. “The Old Man in the Mirror” shows how the echoes of a man who once lived in a house never quite fade. It is a quiet and reflective poem, its strongest image coming when the old man’s blind cat is shown the apparition, “In the reflection, her eyes/flashed. He didn’t move.” Of course the cat would know him, and of course, the old man would be helpless to react. The contrast between the living and the dead is shown gently, not to scare, but to inform.

“A Curtain of Stars” is a good poem for reading on a cold night. An unseen seamstress stitches together a new cosmos. Although this creation is less perfect than the original, “The needle repeats/with imperfect persistence,” there is such a warmth in the process of creation that this is unimportant, “binds warm lining to a curtain of stars.” There is not just love here in the simple crafting, but also longing. It stands in strong contrast to the coldness of the Time Shark, although both are part of the same universe.

The exploration of the universe is continued with “A Million Layers Removed” and a depiction of alternate universes. In this poem, the bulk of things unknown and unknowable is shown as insurmountable and achingly lonely, “Perhaps we slip away/this way all the time, and you and I/are now a million layers removed.”

“Funeral Pie” does not fit in with the themes of the collection, but it is moving nonetheless. Its descriptions of regret and pain are, as the author states, not bound to, “the Amish,/the new world, the old, even Christianity.”

“A Ghost Story” is a split poem – two separate poems one left justified, one right justified, that together make up a whole. The two parts fit seamlessly together, and while the story is fairly simple, it fits well into the theme of the collection.

The rhythm is maintained throughout the next poem, “Death of the Father.” It is a slow burning poem that mixes reverence with hate seamlessly. Phrases such as “footsteps hissing in the mud” and “fissures swallowing” create assonance and further develop the the emotions simmering throughout the work.

Like “A Ghost Story,” “Bloodspell: A Sestina” (cowritten with Anita Allen) gets credit more on form than on its fit with this collection. This finely crafted sestina, is not just a novelty, but a reward in its own right.  The six chosen repeated words: dance, chant, haunt, heart, night and touch are worked into the poem without a trace of the awkwardness often present in poems with rigorous forms.

Not all of the poems work as well. “And All Dust Part of the Dreamer” (cowritten with Charles Saplak), is four pages long and feels more unedited than epic. Other misses include “Ectoappliances” and “The End of the Affair,” which are not really bad poems, but too light for the company they are keeping. They are like one-liners delivered in the middle of a soliloquy.

This collection contains twenty-nine poems, some fitting into the theme better than others. I would have preferred a more focused sampling, in part because “Petting the Time Shark” is such a strong poem that it makes you want to see more of its ilk. This review only touches on a small sampling of what is contained in this chapbook. What remains is good enough to make the lack of cohesion worth overlooking.