Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Morning After the Night Before

Inside the hard edged darkness,

the bar after hours, chair legs turned up

toward the pitted ceiling, toward yellow

caked layers of nicotine and dirt and beer,

the drip of the faucet, the tick of the minute

hand on the industrial clock, ten minutes

past reality and running fast.  The blur

of the TV screen, Music TV with the sound

turned off, rootless images and wasted,

misplaced energy, narratives without meaning,

stories like a Fritz Lang, Metropolis with

dead rock stars inside, floating cars heading

toward a destination no one comes back from.

Sensing the presence of the long gone,

the solitary drinkers who made this their last

home, still sipping their last Socrates cocktail,

their riding the stainless steel gurney elixir,

two bits short of a double and not caring

either way. Recalling the faces of those

not so long gone, those brown girls with

“Don’t fuck with me” expressions and you didn’t,

but you bounced their boyfriends so high

they might never come down, the“ Just who

the fuck do you think you are” tramps, one article

of clothing short of an indecent exposure arrest,

and those banshee voiced women with their

drug shot eyes, bleeding from the corners and

their bad money men with their  ‘I shot the sheriff,

I killed me a guard ‘tattoos, two tears less than

a deluge of body fluids and sudden death and

a whole bar full of drinks to drown them all in

for awhile and a room to wake up in when

the drugging stops and there’s nothing

to save you but yourself.

The Mercenary

He's got a complete

set of Soldier of Fortune

Magazine neatly stacked

and indexed, hot places

marked with post-it-notes

as if he'd been there, done

that, got the battle ribbons

and the scars to prove it,

has some convoluted bull-

shit story about working

rescue on the Autobahn,

even has a closet full of

white EMT shirts with

his name sewn on pockets

that proves he loved the

work and was ready to go

back on a moment's notice,

says picking body parts

out of twisted beyond all

recognition wrecks caused

by out of control drivers

playing high speed chicken

games with designer cars

was where it was at,

says he loved the work cause

it reminded him of working

FUBAR patrols, Graves

Registry, all the details no

one in his right mind wanted

or would ask for, though he

missed the heat of the jungle

in winter but not dealing

with freakin' bugs with fangs

the size of walrus tusks that

drew blood on recon human

fly bys, painted such an elaborate,

detailed picture of his work

you wanted to believe some

of what he was telling you

might be true.

Like clockwork

every Saturday morning

between three & three-

thirty, she wakes up

screaming for more blow,

crack, whatever she's on,

injecting, snorting, smoking,

all of the above----demanding

that he get some more---fast,

before she got sicker, so sick

she wouldn't be able to stand

herself, would have to climb

the mother fucking walls,

coming down hallucination

demons crawling under her skin,

down the walls, filling up

the room, all the spaces left to

breathe----he says, "Calm down.

Where am I going to get such

a thing this time of night?"

"I don't care." she cries, "Just

get it!" Screams, getting louder,

more desperate, more frantic,

more out of control-----until

he smacks her.  Hard. "Snap

out of it, girl! Get a grip,

get yourself together, now."

But she doesn't, won't, starts

that Godawful screaming again----

Until he hits her, harder, this time.

Again and again. Inducing a kind

of cowed silence, she interrupts

by whimpering, nodding off, for

the moment----Their two boys

from other partners, burrowing

under the covers, no longer asking

what's going on, what's wrong

with momma?  They know, now,

how it is and how it will be.