Friday, January 23, 2015

Alan- Catlin- Three Poems


Attention Earthlings

He was one of
those chuckleheaded
losers who was
always trying to
call God on his
spaceship from
a disconnected
public phone,
goes evil on you
when you refuse
to pony up fifty cents
for the righteous
cause of interstellar
communications,
wants to do something
special before he
passes on like getting
shot five times in
the heart like
Gary Gilmore.



Refugee from Another Planet

Whatever Way Out Machine
he'd come in on must have
malfunctioned and left him
stranded still dressed in
decades-before-the-millennium
duds: bright floral surfer pants,
loud striped t-shirt, leather thongs
and rose colored glasses that
mostly concealed his drug spaced
eyes. He was trying to hitch
a ride to the coast to join
an enclave of pot growers
and potential cult suicides,
the name of his destination
tattooed on his forearm in code,
a place eight miles past nowhere
at the bottom of a cliff that
a Richter Scale 8 had dumped
into the Pacific, not even memories
left behind.



"don't die without jesus"

the wino sd.
leaning against
the Bus Stop sign
clutching a fist full
of wet pamphlets
he'd either picked
from the garbage
or from a mugged
pair of born agains,
along with enough
pocket change for
a jug of dago red,
"Save yourself,
brother.  Buy a one-
way ticket to salvation.
Just a dollar, man,
for a dream."
I thought maybe
I'd give him half
a sawbuck for the lot,
send him on his way
to the promised land,
thinking, as drunk
as he was already,
crossing four lanes
of traffic, heedless
only of the neon spirit
light in the distance
that said "Liquor",
would bring that brother
home faster than a
lightning bolt from above.


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