SELECTED POETRY

by
Alan Catlin

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED

She asks, "How
many new experiences
do you think
you can handle
in one night?"
And I say,
"That depends upon
what kind of experiences
you had in mind."
"Good ones."
She says,
"The kind that
makes your skin
tingle when
you are asleep."
"That sounds like
a nightmare to me."
"Not when you're
with me. In fact,
when you're with
me, you may never
want to sleep again."
So I say, "Is this
like the Jimi Hendrix
Experience? If it is,
I don't do flaming
guitars."
"You won't need
a musical instrument
at all."
So I sit and think
of the silence that
has come between
us and how it might
be filled.

© Alan Catlin

---

CRYING

Nights like these,
evenings long after
I have surrendered
hope, given up on
getting anything special
from life, I see her
in profile, some kind
of dream woman,
an apparition, drinking
frozen margueritas
with extra salt that
stains her once glossy
lips as she silently
mouths the words to
jukeobx tunes for
the doomed youth,
sorrowful anthems,
as if she were the pale
senorita in "Mulholland
Drive" lip synching
the black and white man's
signature tune in espanol,
"Crying", until she is over
come and carried off
the stage, the singing
continuing long after she
is gone as it will here
when you are no longer the
singer in black velvet,
crooning Los Bravos,
for all the love sick boys,
"Black is black, I want
my baby back."

© Alan Catlin

---

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 gray
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
Kuwait oil fields,
his brain too.

© Alan Catlin

---

LOTTERY PICK

The last time
I saw her she
was flat on her
back on some
junkyard sofa
entertaining the
troops, had moved
on to bigger &
better tricks like
panhandling for
dollars at Central
Ave bus stops
promising nirvana
on earth if you'd
donate more than
the price of a pint,
as if giving her money
might buy you a prayer
flag or a winning
ticket to a promised
land.

© Alan Catlin

---

DOWN AND DIRTY

Of all the places he'd lived in
the last 20 years, squat was
the nicest word that could
be applied to the kind of grunge
holes he filled with personal
effects, every one decorated
the same way with black &
white spread shots from magazines
no self-respecting person would be
caught dead owning, foreign imports
that vendors faced hefty fines even
thinking about selling to marginal
citizens like this guy with a rap
sheet of heinous crimes against
nature so disgusting and depraved
the inevitable fact of his unrepentant
recidivism surprised no one least
of all his case worker who was
on record wondering out loud how
something nominally human could
become the way this guy was,
house proud and inordinately pleased
with his collection of Super X-rated
mondo disgusto porno videos,
an unofficial, his life an unresolved arson
statistic waiting to happen.

© Alan Catlin

---

SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME

The mauve party dress was
for your installation, that modern
odyssey of your life in Art,
the life you threw away on
props, on all those undressed
tailor's dummies, the retro-clothes
filched from Salvation Army outlets,
City Mission showrooms, upscale
clothing stores, all the costume
jewelry from mad dreams of the 50's
a decade that never was for you,
though all those performances,
all that unconvincing static Art
tried so desperately to remake
all those tunnels, all those things
inside you that needed to be touched,
that disappeared along with the lost
voices of all the love martyrs who died
at your feet, who tried in vain to
possess you, they were like all those
children's voices from Vishniac
silenced in a Warsaw Gehtto of
your mind; I want to see them,
want to hear all those voices as I once
heard yours but nothing can bring
them back, can bring you back,
not even the dress you once wore,
hanging so long here without a human
form that dress feels the way you would,
so afraid to be touched, Oh so afraid.

© Alan Catlin

---

OLD MAN

at the bus stop
cadging cigarettes
right side useless
supported by a cane
stroke afflicted
mostly bald head
hidden beneath
old Yankees cap
nearly transparent skin
He looks oddly familiar
more familiar than he should
until I remember why
remember how he used to brag
say how I made him his first legal drink
when he was younger
than I was

© Alan Catlin

---