Alan Catlin- Two Poems

                                               The Mysterious Stranger

                                                walked in after a lifetime sunning

                                                himself in a place where the ozone

                                                layer had completely been deleted or,

on the edge of some rain forest

where the climate was changing so rapidly

                                                it radically effected anyone who went there

                                                in ways that can only be imagined. 

Maybe it was the unspeakable

                                                rankness of his rotting clothes covered by

something that might either have once been

mud or engine grease, and permanently

sealed with a impenetrable slimy gloss

                                                like a polyurethane scented with assorted

                                                barnyard animal feces, and the bottom layer

                                                of the rare bird room of a Bronx Zoo,

where it was conceivable he might have been

a regular, dreaming of a lottery win that

would bring unlimited pints of Wild Irish Rose,

                                                and Cheeze Curls for a years, until the cash

                                                ran out, or was stolen.  

I watched him trying to complete a thought

that began, “Could I have----“ and ended with

                                                him standing up, addressing a tree alongside

Western Avenue, a newly acquired one dollar

bill in his hand, a locked door at his back

                                                ----a moment of your time, a draught beer

                                                anything at all?

                                               

                                                To a Person Sitting in Darkness

                                                sitting at the far end of the bar

                                                after hours, the silent TV,

                                                flash dancing MTV images in the cold,

                                                harsh, early dawn lighting.

                                                What is left of the bar’s interior,

                                                covered in spilt beers, rank whiskeys,

                                                smoked cigarettes; all the filled up

                                                ashes trays of post-midnight dreams. 

                                                Five pints of Bass Ale, and two double

                                                extra dry Robert Roys, for the road,

                                                doesn't touch, or remove, the darkness

                                                lingering inside. The only motivation

                                                to move, a force of nature, 

an empty glass.

Alan Catlin is a very retired barman. Twenty five of his thirty years of service were spent behind an Irish bar and all he has to show for it is a button that says 98% Blarney Free and a blinking, green, Miller Lite bottle cap.