Alan Catlin- Three Poems

A Match for Burning

Their idea of

a night out on

the town meant

getting thrown out

of bars together

while Mom was

home minding

the little ones,

her feet propped

up on the ottoman,

pay for view

on the tube,

and empty dead

soldier, Barton's

Reserve, lying by

the recliner with

the other comrades

at arms killed in

the line of duty:

Milwaukee's Best,

Genny Light, Matt's

Premium, a whole

army of regulars

and Tall Boys,

scattered among

the discarded fast

food containers,

empty pizza boxes,

McDonald's, Burger

King's, KFC, Wendy's,

all the best junkfoods

welfare money can buy,

the toddler's rummaging,

augmenting their dinner

with the remains,

draining the bottles,

just like mom & dad.

grabbing all the gusto

they can, flipping bics

recovered from the

rubble, mock puffing

stubs as grandma snores

totally dead to the world.

poet’s savage muse

whispers dread

secrets

outlines

the strange poetics

of death

iambic pent-

ameters of

suicide

draws the

shades

covers all

mirrors

snuffs the

candle

flame between

two black

tipped

fingers

the moving

hand

no longer

writes

slum goddess

Maybe she

thought that

if she main-

lined enough

stuff, dressed

like some kind

of resurrected

Warhol queen

and strutted her

stuff up & down

McDougal Street,

she'd be anointed

the Official Slum

Goddess of the

Lower East Side,

or maybe she'd

get so strung

out, so hyper

no one would

notice or care

what she did

until she dressed

up as some low

budget super girl,

and did a swan

dive from the top

              floor of some

closed-for-the-

duration tenement

high rise to see

if the stash of

super balls sewn

into her garments

and bundled in

her cowl would

make her rebound

as high as she

felt, as high

as the moon.