Alan Catlin |
Published: November 12th, 2015
|
Alan Catlin has been a widely published poet since the mid-70’s. His father and step-mother were residents of Deltona for over ten years, until their deaths. His next book publication will be “Last Man Standing” from Lummox Press.
|
The Red and the Black
He looked like
a latter day Dennis Hopper Look Alike Contest Winner slumming at the bus stop chewing his alternately purple and sky blue painted fingernails, the ones grown long as if chewed to a point to match filed teeth for some obscure reason better left unknown or perhaps the same impulse that made him chose mismatched high topped Converse All Star sneakers, the red and the green like the fading bruises around his blood shot eyes, partially concealed by black lensed sunglasses streaked by rain. I wanted to ask him if his father was an intravenous LSD user in his youth the way Hopper had accused Christopher Walken's Sicilian character in True Romance as having direct antecedents that were baboons but remembered how much Walken had enjoyed killing Hopper's character made me decide not to.
Too much too little too late
She wants
She wants She wants All of maybe six years old she wants more makeup more scent more eyebrow pencils Her mother says, “You already have four kinds of makeup. I’m not buying you anything else. Give it here so the lady can put it back on the shelf.” “No! I want I want I want……” “Give it to the lady now. I know you’ll steal it if you don’t.” “I won’t. I’m not the devil.” Pink and red nail polish on alternating fingers Bright red lips Heavily rouged or wind burned cheeks “I’m not the devil, Mommy.” “I know you aren’t.” “Then why do you say I am ?” “Because I say so. That’s all you need to know.”
Elvira Honey Don’t Live Here No More
After the third or fourth
middle of the night call for, “Elvira Honey”, I tried a new approach to discourage the caller who wouldn’t take, “You’ve got the wrong number,” for an answer, said, “Elvira Honey don’t live here no more. She be running with a new crowd now.” “What you doing with that woman, White Boy?” “What you think I’m doing? I’m running her sweet ass ragged.” “I’m a coming for you, White Boy, hear? And it’s going to get ugly.” “Bring it on. You know where to find us.” “You bet your white ass, I do.” I almost felt sorry for Elvira and her White Boy, if she knew one. Whatever happened, I slept better now that those late night calls had stopped.
All the recent
All the recent
concern for safety and the surge of patriotism reminds me of a story my Dad liked to tell about this guy Hans he knew from work way back when. Dad sees Hans coming out of this local VFW Post and he's like floored. ‘Hans,’ he says, ‘what the hell are you doing in there?’ ‘I'm the bartender there now.’ ‘Bartender! But Hans you fought for the Germans. You know the enemy. The Nazis. The bad guys!’ ‘Yes, this is true. But they never ask me which Army I serve in. All the sign says is Veteran of Foreign Wars so I apply and I get the job.’ It seemed like such an obvious answer you know it has to be true. Makes you wonder if they've tightened up their screening requirements since then , bit, somehow, knowing those stubborn old hard line bastards, you knew they hadn’t.
The Real Nitty Gritty
He had a wash
‘n wear wardrobe, a wash ‘n wear life when you came right down to the vast amounts of nitty gritty contained inside layers of rags passing for clothes covering his emaciated loins, his cleanliness weather dependent, knots of greasy, streaked grey hair uncut since the end of Gulf War One, the conflict he swore on a stack of stolen Gideon Bibles he’d been to on a magic carpet ride brokered in a Baghdad bazaar, his vision clouded by smoke from burning Kuwaiti oil fields, his brain too. |