Alan Catlin- Three Poems

     

Coming Home 1968

No one had to ask,

"Where have you been?"

nights he broke free

from the compound/house,

parents secured, that is locked

in their bedroom, all lines

of communication severed,

illegal weapon set on lock

and load as he readied himself

for a solitary patrol dressed in

full camo and black face paint

using light of a quarter moon

to lead the way down Garfield

Place to the jungle on Ocean

Ave where Charlie was dug in,

sleeping, just four blocks

from home and a half a world,

half a lifetime away.

Beneath the Wheel 1970

Life  in that year was a traveling

circus for him, an experience

somewhere between a religious

conversion and a mystical vision

of demons and devils competing

for first crack at a mind already raging

out of control with a draft notice

in one hand and an invitation to

appear at Whitehall Street in NYC

for a physical that could be the major

determining factor as to whether

the next few years would become an

expense paid jungle vacation in

South East Asia or studying another

corpus, the dead white men also known

as the major English authors; began

living in a gulf somewhere between

being a kind of blind leading the blind

student teacher of disaffected youth,

and the living dead, becoming a

different kind of walking casualty/

work in progress as  an unemployed,

unemployable long hair/ walking stress

machine on the edge of a precipice

of an inherited schizophrenic malaise

exacerbated by depression especially

now that a child had been born and another

was on the way; he wasn't quite broken on

the wheel of life but was riding on the rim of

the blown spare, half way to hell and asking

directions for how to get all the way there.

Our Big Night at the Movies, Utica, N.Y. 1969

Thursday night, one showing only

double features: Russ Meyer,

quadruple Double D babes,

Flesh Gordon takeoffs, soft porn

with a sense of humor, underbelly

of Hollywood stars and starlets:

Cynthia Myers, Long Dong Silver,

Donna Does It, John Hardwood,

Betty Boobs. Posted: No Alcohol Allowed

sleazoid theater, beverages snuck in

by the six pack in oversized,

multi-pocket, Army surplus jackets.

Weed smoking in Men’s Room timed

piss breaks, “a little weed will do ya”,

shifts. Ushers paid not to really care

or notice, dirty old men and long haired

college students, as long as they don’t

burn the place down. Extra charge

for Special Foreign Import Features”

“Carmen Baby”, “My Sister, My Love”,

Fanny’s Hill”. All almost as boring

as Carmen’s whore friend chewing gum

and talking on the phone as she got laid.

Still, Carmen and extra long necked Chianti

bottle, was the best thing on stage anyone

had seen since The Inferno burned down.

Ugly hooker working parking lot after flicks,

group rates available, “I’ve got the real

stuff you boys are looking for.”

“Hold that thought, Sweetheart,”

exit lines as cars sped off, mid-term

exams, overdue papers, Vietnam War,

could wait for another day, another

week of cheap beer and Mary Jane,

Oh, Sweet, Merciful Mary Jane.