Personal Growth ******* Mt. Katahdin ******* On July the fourth, as America is waking, Apollo strikes Katahdin’s helmet first. A ranger climbs the mount as day is breaking And poised like Liberty thrusts our flag into burst. . In time, across the summit, blackened clouds And blasting flashes trumpet Python’s heirs: The sons of the …
Personal Growth ******* Banner of Science ******* Out of the west, an angel thought has come To slice the darkness with its flaming sword. The forces of evil, facing delirium, Thrust the thoughts of sin to counter the Lord. . But armed with Love, the angel’s legends still stand And fight, as one, Revelation’s great …
Personal Reflections ******* America Lands on the Moon ******* The streets of Paris flashed with lines Of television sets, So all could hear the astronauts Descend to moon on jets. . The commentators spoke in French And NASA, the English tongue. We crowded underneath a set To grasp what NASA sung. …
Personal Reflections ******* Youthful Ventures ******* Her draped, dark profile mimicked the Matterhorn, As my wife gazed into its strength and power, The sky, the beauty, slowly dimming till morn. We woke to reddish glow on yonder tower. . Next year, the Jackson Hole’s sharp Teton peaks Would shred Wyoming’s sky with strips of clouds. …
Personal Reflections ******* Hillsides of Scotland ******* The verdant-brown, unevenly checkered hills Of Scotland roll and twist through mist and rain. A blurry pond expands from storm-made rills, And flowers outside my pattered windowpane, . Thus sitting close upon the sill in streaks, Are blushing colors blending with the rues. But when the showers cease …
Personal Reflections ******* Remembering ******* Two teacher lovers honeymooned the North, Staking a campsite deep in Dolly Copp. Rocketed spray mimicked July Fourth— Their sandy-stream plopping “the bunny hop.” . Between the hikes, they shopped the bargain books, Found a whale-oil lamp to electrify, And cooled their feet, wading the babbling brooks. They dreamed, spied …
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ******* An experience in a classroom during Allan’s Freshman year at Florida State University, when he had begun by majoring in Mathematics, before in his Sophomore year when he changed his major to English Education. ******* God Must Love Polyhedrons ******* A catastrophic assignment hit the class! For Mr. Hammerstrein had struck again! …
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ******* Allan’s poems for our two precious children, Drew and Danica ******* Andrew James Dermott, born June 14th ******* A Growing Son My son enjoys his newly found endowments: He throws his father now in wrestling matches, Outruns the graying beard, outhits his dad, And usually outsmarts him by the end of cards’ …
Honeymoon Adventure Continues ******* Remembering Two teacher lovers honeymooned the North, Staking a campsite deep in Dolly Copp. Rocketed spray mimicked July Fourth— Their sandy-stream plopping “the bunny hop.” . Between the hikes, they shopped the bargain books, Found a whale-oil lamp to electrify, And cooled their feet, wading the babbling brooks. They dreamed, spied …
Our Honeymoon Adventure Continues ******* Climbing the Presidential Range ******* We’d climbed Mount Washington on our honeymoon, A joyous ascent with views for sixty miles. But now we slowly edged our way along The western slopes and ridges of Jefferson. When one-third up she grumbled, “It’s so hot!” Although I felt my shirt was glued …
Honeymoon Adventure Continues ******* Climbing Mt. Washington ******* My wife and I once climbed Mt. Washington as part of our belated honeymoon.But halfway up the rangers steered us off the trail covered from landslide in the night. So up the Lion’s Head we pulled our weighty bodies …
Honeymoon Adventure ******* Allan and Lynn had quite an unexpected adventure climbing Mount Washington during their honeymoon. Due to a landslide on the Tuckerman Ravine trail, the usual way up Mount Washington, it was necessary to climb up the Lion’s Head trail. To say this was quite demanding is an understatement. They climbed over large …
Personal Reflections ******* Allan had many other personal adventures, some in New Hampshire and Maine when he and his brothers hiked and camped during summer vacations. Allan met Lynn at Florida State University, and after they both graduated, they married in 1965. Allan was an English teacher in a high school and then a college …
Beyond the Dam – The fourth sonnet ******* Beyond the Dam What mighty waters flow this sunny day! How speeding current washes o’er and round Those rapids piercing powerful Penobscot’s sway Through manless scenes of nature’s roaring sound! . How waves of main wash o’er our logged deck! With raft, and paddle crude in hands, …
Beyond the Dam – The Third of the Four Sonnets ******* Before and Beyond the Dam Before the dam, the cardboard channel chokes With pulp dumped up course from a paper mill. Approaching the dam, we guide our raft with strokes To shore and spend the night with a whippoorwill. . Then being reassembled beyond …
Beyond the Dam – The second of the four sonnets ******* Here we have another version of a Beyond the Dam sonnet … when he got carried away with his rhyming dictionary. ******* Penobscot Perversed ******* The sonnet with this title first Was like the river, poorly versed. The water ran with foam – the …
Introduction to Beyond the Dam – The four sonnets ******* We begin with Allan’s amazing adventure with Leonard, his brother, going down the Penobscot River in Maine on a homemade wooden raft. Allan wrote several versions of the sonnets Before and Beyond the Dam over the years when a student in 1963 at Florida State …
The Sonnet This book, being mostly sonnets, needs some introduction to the art of the sonnet. Allan’s wife Lynn (who has put this volume together) especially greatly admires the musicality of the sonnet form. Besides the meaning within a sonnet, one of the main pleasures comes from the rhythm patterns and the music it creates. …
In the Conclusion to this book of Allan’s sonnets and poems, he writes: “Reading, including not only non-fiction and fiction, but also poetry, is the closest thing to true magic that humans possess. It allows us to enter the mind of another person, to see what they see, experience what they feel, and understand their …
Allan, a poet at heart, has been writing sonnets and poems since his college days. He writes in his Preface: “When a book of poems is opened, what does the reader hope to find? Generally, we find one wants a poem to have some kind of beauty and meaning. … The purpose of this collection …
Beyond the Dam, Sonnets and Poems Allan’s book of Sonnets and Poems, Beyond the Dam, is now available on the websites of Balboa Press, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. (A note about the Kindle version: the format changes depending on how you set it and the best is to change to “view full screen” (the …