Alan Catlin- Three Poems

From my tears

the policeman said,    

"There was nothing

you could have

done about it.

That man was gone;

dead cold, before

he hit the floor.

It's only natural

for you to freak

out when faced with

a life or death

thing you'd never

seen before and

couldn't handle.

Hell, it had happened

to me when I was a

rookie---" I thanked

the cop though we

                                                         could both tell I

                                                         didn't mean it. I wasn't

a rookie and it wasn't

the first time someone

dropped on me when I

couldn't do anything

but watch him die.

I still felt, somehow,

as if that guy

getting wheeled out

of the bar with a sheet over

his face, was all

my fault, and nothing

anyone could say or

do would ever be able

to change how I felt.

A brace of whiskeys

would help me start

adjusting my  attitude,

like right now,

the only problem being

was not knowing

if I would be able to

stop.

“We can build you

up, make a real

man of you,”

he sd. like some kind of

roving Marine Good Will

recruiter on a divine mission

to save the hearts and minds of

                            the unrepentant sinners sipping

shots and brews, smoking butts

down to the filter, instead of

pumping iron and reading

from The Book.

Following this boy scout trooper

into some third world

country too weak to defend

itself, so we could build up

our self images with a little

constructive raping and pillaging,

before some real R&R back home

in a place like this, where battle

scars are an excuse for another

pop, another round for the ditch

you never wake up in.

All the time he

had spent out of the joint,

was an exercise in futility,

as if he were determined

to get back there where all his

friends were, where everything

was programmed, and every day

was just a reliving of

all the good-assed,

good old times working on

perfecting felony rap songs,

jail house lawyering

skills, and slick contraband

schemes. He liked to say, only

half in jest, that the primary reason

anyone would want to be outside

at all, was for a warm piece

of ass. Everything else was

government issued, free ride,

paid for, and waiting for

an enterprising man to collect.

A man could make himself

quite a nice living, if he could

learn to do without women,

hell he wasn't much to look

at no how so he'd get by,

yes, he would.