Monday, July 21, 2014

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Alien Presence: Things Fall Apart

The who-knows-how-old-woman
on the bar stool next to him was
stuck in some self-perpetuating
talking binge that could drive a
man to violence.  She was somewhere
between thirty and ageless,
all of her body functions in cessation
except that center of speech,
rambling on without benefit
of human constraint, a kind of alien
possession making her an automaton
in human skin fueled by alcohol
and stuck in high gear no one could
down shift to neutral.  He considered
suggesting they go to her room, cell,
cloister, on the off-chance she might
have a pair of rolled up gym socks
he could use as gag to maybe muffle
the sound emanating from her like
a death ray or a Star Trek stun gun.
It was probably hopeless but maybe
worth a shot. Even considered trying
her on for size: she wasn’t half-bad
in a certain kind of light. Not here, in
various shades of neon, but in the dark
of a room with black out curtains pulled
tight.  Somehow, he just knew the inevitable
would happen in mid-whatever: one or
both of them would lapse into an alcoholic
coma and eventually she’d come to,
transform herself from whatever into
a migraine with tits.  Much as he was not
inclined to moving: a body at rest and
all that, he knew it was time to sail, said,
“Ship ahoy, mates. Ship ahoy.”
Staggered through the pub door into
a vast unknown as she talked on, oblivious
to his passing on.  In the dark, ripped out
of his gourd, in the confusion of all this
new, nebulous stimulation, nothing looked
familiar, He thought,” I’ve reached
the end of the world and I’m about to
fall off.”  Took one more step
Fell.



Space Junkies

If it were Halloween, these guys
would have fit right in or even
if it had been New Year’s Eve or
Mardi Gras and they had been on
the way to some end of the world
as we know it party, but it was none
of those, not the kind of place that
dressing like Gary Glitters, Ziggy
Stardust  clones on some kind of
Velvet Goldmine club quest,
ostentatiously pierced all about their
bodies, tacky make up and costume
clothes like stiff out of Harper’s Bizarre,
Warhol’s Pandora Box wardrobe, body
art by some demented freak on speed
with a butcher’s knife instead of a tattooist’s
tools, the only discernible images, death
cultist symbols and the leader of the pack’s
Gothic lettered phrase” PISS FACTORY,
forming a semi-circle around his navel,
all of them stoned to the gills and clearly
hostile, in need of sedatives to slow
the virtual China syndrome chemical mix
threatening to flatline their vital organs,
close their bodies down, the take-me-to-
your-leader gesturing at the barman,
pointing at the back bar high octane rocket fuel
bottles, waving fifty dollar bills as an attention
getting aid, trying to bridge a considerable
language gap with guttural noise making
and even more frantic waving, succeeding
only in creating an image of Euro trash on tour,
way lost on some highway to hell they were
building as they went, oblivious to their
surroundings and determined to stay that way.



Space Cowboy

like some kind of urbane cowpoke
in second hand store bought jeans
and shirts only worn on the range
for cooking dinners on electric
stove tops or for warming instant
coffee to pour in a Trailblazers mug
he mistakes for the emblem of some
Wild West Show. Even after hours,
Perfecting his image and stride in
full length mirror, he’s spotted as a
dude walking into a bar, singled out
for some major attitude adjustment
by unspoken agreement among regulars
he asks about the real Area 51, they’d
send him looking for by shortcuts and
made up state highways that would lead
him all the way up to Wyoming once
he’d recovered from all the mind altering
stuff they’d put in hi shots and beers,
telling him it was the local custom,
and he’d gleefully agreed without pausing
to ask what the special ingredients were,
not that they would have told him; these
recipes were a carefully guarded secret
as these things should be.

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