Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Alan Catlin- Three Poems


Aggravation

There was never a drink
so aptly named so much so
I considered handing them
out free to all the assholes
I was showing the door to
but decided it was a waste of
bar scotch and Kahlua.
The latest candidate for a freebie
was sitting at the bar,
alternately whistling off-key
and lecturing the world in general
as he decided who next to annoy.
“Hey Chief!” he bellows,  showing
a decision had been made,
the next pissed person would be me.
Failing to attract attention
with that clever opening gambit,
he tries the old standby routine:
tapping a quarter on the bar top as
loud as he can.  When that fails,
he resorts to the old fashioned
attention grabber of the ages,
yelling, “What’s it take to get
service in this bar?” I reply,
“Try self-immolation.  I go for that.
Here’s the lighter fluid and a book
of matches.  Go for it. I’ll give you
to the count of ten to be either on fire
or gone.  Starting now.  One, two….”
He looked at me as if he couldn’t
decide if I was serious or crazy.
I assured him I was a lot of both
by taking the fluid from his hand
squirting some in a glass ashtray
and striking a match.



Silk Panties

When I was working lounges
a lot tackier and a lot more
expensive than this bar that I was
doing time in, I used to get
girls like her tossed on general
principles rather than take the ten per
cent she and her friends gave out
for not noticing what was coming
down.  Maybe she still thought
all the men peed their pants just
thinking about fucking her ,though
once you decided that wouldn’t happen
in this lifetime or another, she was
just another aging bimbo with big tits.
She wasn’t used to not getting respect
from bartenders, as if we were all
supposed to just kneel down and
worship at her feet just thinking
about the possibility of sniffing
her silk panties. I felt then, and still
do now, there are things in life
other than money and you didn’t have to
debase yourself the way she routinely did,
to get it.  For all I knew, she might
be wandering around that bar yet,
waiting to be served.



Monster Shot

He would have been a
natural for the role of
George in Of Mice and Men
if he could have shrunk
nine inches and mastered
one or two polysyllabic
words.
I suspected even his mother
would not have allowed
him to leave the house
with clothes he had
apparently outgrown years
ago unless she were some
kind of itinerant mad
scientist with a super
fast acting growth hormone
and a particularly sick
sense of humor.
He had mastered Beer,
the word and the concept
but not much else.
I wondered if it was
common practice where he
came from to devour the glass
and ,whatever else he fancied,
when he was done with Beer.


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