JOHN ("JAKE") COSMOS ALLER - POEMS

​John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department serving in ten countries (Korea, Thailand, India, the Eastern Caribbean (Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia, and St Vincent) and Spain. Prior to joining the U.S. State Department, Jake taught overseas for eight years. Jake served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He grew up in Berkeley but has lived in Seattle, Stockton, Washington DC, Alexandria, Virginia and Medford, Oregon. He has traveled to over 45 countries and 49 states. He has been writing poetry, fiction, and novels for years. He has completed four SF novels and is seeking publication. His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines online. His poetry blog can be found at https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com

​Three AM Nightmares

​Index

​3 Am Nightmares 
Strong Wine
The Shape of History
Yesterday Morning
God Calls the Grimm Reaper

​3 am 

​The bewitching hour
When the wild things come out
And play
 
And torture you
With endless wild accusations
And nightmarish visions
 
As I toss and turn
Trying to escape
 
I look over at my wife
And as always
Repeat the matra
Everything will be alright
 
And the wild things are banished
To the dark corners of my mind
 
And I recover my happiness
And I smile
As I look at the sleeping beauty
 
Still the most beautiful women in the world
Still the most alluring women in the world
 
Still in love with her
After 35 years
 
The love gets stronger and stronger
As she overcomes my despair
 
And the sun comes up
And I think to myself
 
What a wonderful life I have
With the women of my dreams
 

​Strong Wine

​One night
I was starring
In my wine glass
 
Deep in thought
When I saw
Something in my wine
That haunts me still
 
I saw in the bottom of the glass
Evil dooers abandon evil
And became saints
 
I saw rich men give up
Their awesome greed
And poor people
Awarded dignity
 
And all men
Became brothers
 
All women
Became sisters
 
And war ended once and for all
And peace broke out
And hatred disappear
 
And I stared
Into my glass wine
 
I drink the wine
Hoping the vision
 
Would infect me
And change the world
 
But alas the world
Remained the same
 
The evil dooers came back
The rich continued to conspire
And the poor still remained poor
And the war continued on and on
 
So I drank my wine
And went to sleep

​The Shape of History

​Once I too had ambition
I had the usual dreams of glory and grandeur
All I wanted to be was to be a great creative genius
Only I did not know
How to kiss ass creatively
 
Once I had dreams of greatness
I would be glorious and free
All would envy and admire
This man so noble and great
Now I am tied down in mirthless mire
 
Once I hustled
Once I took no shit from anyone
Once I wanted the universe
 
Now I am contended to shit
And refuse to bustle
Why bother anymore
 
In the gathering gloom
Of the foreseeable future
 
One thing is certain
I do not want a room
 
On the scrap heap of society
And yet that might be my fate
 

​Yesterday Morning

​Yesterday morning, I awoke                                                                
Like most mornings
 
I was still dead I walked
Out of my drug infested slum
Into my computerized car
Down the freeways of my mind
Searching for the pot of golden dreams
 
I stopped in at a Restaurant
Drank copious amounts of free coffee
And saw all the people
 
One by one disappearing into the crowds
All I knew was wrong
 
Or worst yet a figment of your imagination
Every person changed
Transformed into an interchangeable computer's robot
 
All the same
All the same
 
Everything living in instant suburbia
Moving their meaningless life
 
All the same all the same
Not me screamed my coffee as I sat
Yet another victim
Of our creeping collective insanity
 
Just cogs in the wheel
Cogs in the wheel
 
And so I go down the road
And get in line
 

​God Calls the Grimm Reaper

​God is in his cosmic control room
The ultimate situation room
Where here he watches over mankind 24/7
 
One day he reads
About protesters
Protesting the operation of Emergency helicopters
 
Because they’re too noisy
they stir up dust
and damage their properties
 
And are just inconvenient as hell
just too bloody inconvenient
 
the protestors are demanding
that the helicopters be grounded
 
Disregarding the fact
That they save lives
Given the hellish traffic conditions
 
God is furious at the callous attitude
The casual disregard for human life
 And the pettiness of the protesters
 
He calls up his chief angels
And reads them the recent articles
 
All of the angels
Are furious at the callous attitudes of the protesters
 
God calls the grim reaper
His contractor who handles the details of death
God says I have a commission for you
The Grim reaper had read the article
 
As he too monitor the world 24/7
 
He laughs
and says I know what to do
 Obviously they all have to die
In an horrific accident
 
and can’t get to the hospital in time
Because they are stuck in traffic
 
Now you're talking God said
But I want you to break protocol
 Just before they die show up
 
And explain to them why
They are about to die
 
That would be poetic justice God said
And you know I’m all about that
 
Everyone laughs
God has a sense of humor after all
 
The grim reaper mordantly salutes the boss
And goes about his grim task