Alan Catlin- Three Poems

                            Destiny        

             She's three maybe four years old:

             part-black, part-white, part-something

             else.  Hyperkinetic, ADD, up all day,

             all night with her single mom.

             Boy friend's doing time on a domestic beef,

             receiving stolen goods, violating parole,

             held over for trial, who knows when, while

             mom entertains The Guests: teenaged

             whores, foot soldiers running dope,

             holding unregistered weapons: handguns,

             assault rifles, semi-automatic arsenals....

             All of them dodging The Man, Social Services,

             rent collectors, eviction notices, Sheriff

             deputies in Wild West hats: too bad they

             don't work the early morning shift when

             the house comes alive, party time for one

             and all, using and abusing, police scanner

             on high alert, they can go from one hundred

             to zero in sixty seconds flat, though sometimes

             they forget, aren't motivated, get hauled in

             for a couple of nights on the city and then

             they are all back on the street, open for business.

             The only attention Destiny gets is when she

             is misbehaving, so she's always into something:

             dodging between parked cars, in and out of

             traffic, forgetting to put on clothes/underwear,

             she's already adept at flashing all of the boys;

             at three, maybe four years old, her life might

             not be over but it might as well be.

           

What Happened After Child Protection Service

            Took Destiny Away

A woman needs love especially

when her man’s away, doing a six

pack for receiving, as in stolen goods,

probably woman’s clothes given

the three daily outfit changes she

makes, whether she needs to or not,

and her without so much as a part time

job.  It wasn’t as if she put up a sign

that said: “Free Pussy” but there was no

doubt her idea of la vida loco meant,

“While the man’s away, the cat will play.”

A week into his sentence, traffic in and out

of her flat increased so much someone

suggested she invest in a revolving

door to save wear and tear on the old

one she currently had. The median age of

her victors seemed to decrease daily

to well below legal, both boys and girls,

middle school yearbooks on their nightstands

not even dusty yet.  Word on the street,

by the boys wired on loosie blunts was,

you could score for a dime, half and half

for a double dime, and single sticks half

price with a trick.  Everyone in town must

have known, even the cops, a fact that

was cramping the style of serious drug

action just up the block. It was an even

money bet as to who was going to bring

her down first: the local Crips or the heat.

The only certainty appeared to be that orange

was going to be her favorite apparel color

in near future despite her stated preference

                                                for softer hues that accented her fair complexion.

                        March

 Another March Monday in jukebox hell

 and everyone in town is either studying

 for Mid‑terms or else on major drugs

 except for the eight people in the bar.

 Who knows how they came to be here,

 even money has it we're the only place

 crazy enough to be open this late

 on a going nowhere night.

 It was quiet for awhile until the drunkest

 of the girls discovers the CD player

 jukebox monster on the way back from

 The Ladies.  What happened later was

 kind of : Have a Guns and Roses New Year's.

 I made a mental note to pour a pitcher

 of Guinness down the back of the machine.

 That stuff is worse than motor oil and

 could kill any CD player made by man.

 I'd even pay for the pitcher, I could get

 nine dollars and fifty cents worth of

 satisfaction watching some clowns lose it

 when the dollar they invested in Pink Floyd

 tunes turns out to be seventeen seconds

 of singing and then black noise.

 Maybe it was the seven Budweiser and

 The Absolut pure martini I gave the beast

 at the end of the bar that fueled what could

 have been my own Apocalypse Now in a bar.

 It went from totally dull Monday to all out

 cold war in about three seconds. 

 There's nothing quite like staring at a monster

 who was all Air Force Karate Champion

 staring down a kid with a jacket that says

 his name is Kevin and he's an instructor

 in karate.  I imagined trying to break up

 that fight and saw myself lying in a pool

 of blood waiting for someone to call both

 the police and an ambulance, and knowing

 neither would happen, but I tried anyway.

 Luckily, the kid instructor had better

 things to do than take on Air Force 1

 like take his friend home and have a quiet beer. 

The Beast assured me  he'd never been stressed

out by being in The Nam:

 "My wife has taken care of all that."

 I watched as he swallowed last call,

 a localized world war in each direct hit

 plus a six pack for the ditch that already

 had cold bodies in it.