Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Late 60's Young America

We were so used to

death an assassination

was an occasion for

an unexpected holiday,

classes cancelled, books

thrown aside, stereos

turned up as joints rolled,

beer bottles cracked open,

body counts in overseas

            jungle as unreal as riots

in the street in nowhere

New York, Utica, where

Nixon's silent majority

ruled & long haired students

on drugs were what was wrong

with America, not the War,

not killing Civil Rights

leaders, not spying on

your fellow citizens, not

shooting candidates for

high office; Death was

a spontaneous party,

taking the blind guys to

the driving range, teeing up

their balls & showing them

where to hit, the arc of a

well struck shot a white

tracer round disappearing

into the clinging mists,

into unreal klieg light haze

over dried brown grass,

over us all, drunk, stoned,

oblivious, young dead men

walking.

1970

They act as if you were

born old, some kind of

Ancient of Days with a          

shot glass, say, "Do you

remember 1970?"

And you zone out into

a hard rain is gonna fall

moment, Spring semester

senior year, stoned crazy

since some forgotten time

in the Fall of 1969,

vaguely recalling listening

to Sun Ra record in dark

of Sunset Blvd. duplex

amenable to any suggestion,

even ones that don't make

sense, maybe especially

those, "Let's go to the

reservoir and listen to

the water going over

the dam---"in torrential

rain, sliding down steep

embankment, the mud and

the grass underfoot, Hinkley

runoff, a virtual Niagara

of sound and power, all

the clinging mud some kind

of strange prelude to, not so

far away prospect of Basic,

of being shipped overseas

into the jungle, part of a

            new Credence tune, "Better

run through the jungle----

Don't look back---"into

the rain, the swirling torrents

debating whether to jump

now and be done with it or

join the living dead, dog

soldiers on this mission

that serves no purpose,

the interior car light a beacon

beckoning in the distance

"A bad moon risin'------

Who'll stop the rain----

Proud Mary keeps on burning

rolling on the river----"

hit parade of Credence tunes

intimations of mortality,

an impetus to make the climb,

the long journey home.

Inside the car, bone cold,

shivering, lighting another

stick for the road pounded

flat as all the double lines

we crossed over, living all

the worst kind of bad dreams

a man could want----"

"1970," I said, "Yeah, I

remember 1970, A great year

for Sports, Drugs and Rock

and Roll."

The Transfer Student from Hell 1968

No one had seen him

since the start of

the semester though you

could hear him scratching

on the walls, scuttling

amid the rubble presumed

to be inside, knocking

things unknown over,

dragging stuff across

the floor, something

screeching that could

have been a living thing

tortured or a recording

of the worst kind of

suffering known to man.

If he went to classes he

left the room under cover

of complete darkness long

after everyone should have

been sleeping.  DC said

he'd seen this pale as death

person dressed all in black

walking on frozen snowbanks,

gesturing toward the full

moon, his arms outstretched

summoning reflected light,

alternate life sources he

intended to assume as his

own.  Doc sd. DC's out of

his mind and everyone agreed,

he was, but what he had said

went a long ways toward

explaining whatever it was

that was happening behind

that closed, that double locked

door.