Monday, January 13, 2014

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Strange Days

“I can hardly wait…….”
            Juliette Lewis

“I’m going to a place where the sun shines
brighter and the stars are always out.”
            Gary Evans, serial killer, tombstone poem

There they are, Mardi Gras
made up, juiced on Purple Jesus,
the cocktail and the prophet,
rapture guided and call girl invited
down unlit spiral stairs into flat screened
night, celestial events inside, asteroid
belts and flame out comet eyes
in newly discovered, candle powered
hipster dive, holy roller, thrum jazz
crazy upbeat paradise pulse, broken
crack pipes and scorched essence of tea,
a shooting gallery for popgun deadbeat
poets and their unventilated nightmares
spreading like carcinoma calloused skin
spiderwebbing closet space no one can
move in, least of all the half white-faced,
half black-faces mummers miming
a play of words, “When the music’s over
turn out the lights, turn out the lights….”


The Body

“You only find something like that
after Karaoke.  Whoever invented that shit
had hell in mind, knew it would become
a bar owner’s best friend. How else could
people justify getting totally wasted and
making a complete fool of themselves in
the name of fun and spending all their money
while doing it?  It’s like the state lottery with
alcohol and Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, all kinds
of weird shit happens after Karaoke nights.
And after St. Patrick’s; all the rules of normal
human behavior go out the window then.”
The clean up guy said, in reference to
the body under the bench.  The only thing
that had separated it, when sober, from a rock,
was a nominal pulse, this spat upon, rolled
in the mud like solution of spilled beer, cigarette
ash and human waste that was the bar floor. 
It was like Rome after the first wave of barbarians
had ripped through town, those party-‘til-you-
drop dead enders with a pocket full of speed
to chase their epic hangovers South before
they had a chance to establish a hold on brains
so fogged by years of serious substance abuse,
a week in the tank wouldn’t begin to lessen
the load they were about to carry. 
Lying undiscovered, in after hours dark,
chair feet up on tables no one bothered to
look under; clean up is such a drag,
leave that shit work for the sweeper.
Besides, there was precious little catch up time
left in this life of too much noise, never enough
money or willing women to share it with,
to be worried about missing persons of dubious
distinction.  “I could open up a Victoria’s Secret
second hand shop with all the  ladies garments
I find.” The cleanup guy said,  “Sometimes you
have to wonder how they got where they ended up
with no one noticing: behind the bar, amid the
rows of bottles, under the rinse sinks, nestled inside
light fixture shades…..The security tapes no one
is supposed to know about, must be X-rated. 
I wonder if I could find them on-line?
Would make those college girls on Spring Break
things look like Walt Disney presents:
“Bambi Does Albany.” Yeah, finding stuff,
that’s what this job is all about.
And cleaning it up.”

for Gary of the Floors


She should have

been wearing a
BEYOND GOOD
AND EVIL t-
shirt instead of
the form fitting
pullover that
emphasized her
breasts that
launched a 1,000
ships though
the hot pants
attached to her
rear end almost
blew the effect
suggesting a, later
in life, war between
slut and slob
judging by the way
the labels of her
Jockey underwear
for women & the GAP
pants were exposed
for all to see,
made me think,
first the slut
wins then the
slob takes over

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