Alan Catlin has several new books in the works including a long series of noir movie poems concluding with three chapbooks in one book under the title Exterminating Angels from Kelsay for mid-year 2022. he also has two chapbooks coming soon as well: Satan’s Kiss from Gutter Snob ad Dream Rider from Orchard Street Press.

Hangover Requiem

Broken voices speaking of black leather

jackets and motorcycle boots, twisted

heavy metal, vehicles undone, all the ess

curves taken at too high a speed, rain 

slickened and oil stained, all the un-

controllable black ice skids that always

end against unforgiving stone walls,

embankments, metal guard rails and

all the lame voices expending their final

breaths trying to forestall the inevitable:

plush lined boxes, floral arrangements,

slow movements following the exacted

wrath of God, discordant solo notes

rocking the ages, hymns for all the reckless

ones dying too young.

The laughing heart

Life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting

Karl Wallenda

When she still had a job

her nickname was Speed Queen,

an appellation earned from 

dead end relationships with

a serious of lean, no account,

bad teeth boyfriends who lived

in way outback trailers in some

woods off no name dirt roads

not mapped out yet and likely

never would be.  Every time 

her cell rang, she thought it was

that Mission Impossible guy

with an assignment so outrageous,

how could she refuse to take it?

After a week or higher than a Byrds

song from the 60’s without sleep,

she thought the phone told her

where to go, what to do when she

got there, but not what to do after.

All of it so horrific, it might even have

been something like the truth but

once the deed was done and the dead

bodies rolled over and examined,

she conceded the voice might actually

have been one from a Nightmare in

Elm Street and that she was a bit confused 

at the time the instructions were received. 

None of which mattered once the verdict 

had been read and the judge decreed she 

would get one last needle for a magic, 

stainless steel table carpet ride no one 

ever came back from. Once all the appeals 

had been exhausted, the governor’s pardon 

denied, not even a jailhouse conversion

could save her.

Wasted

You’ve always been alone

By now it is your trademark

You like it that way.

Frankie Bono, “Blast of Silence”

Twenty-four years of hard drinking 

and all I have to show for it is a bleeding ulcer, 

a bank account with no balance, one way

canceled tickets to Hell and a conductor

telling me that if I didn’t slow down 

soon, I’d be lucky to live much past

forty. I’m not sure where the luck

figured in, if my life, the way it was,

is what living is all about: four walls

lined with dead soldiers, a leaky gas stove

spewing so many fumes no headache

cure could relieve, a radio that only received

transmissions from people whose lives

were over before they began, uneasy listening

hours, scherzos by Paganini’s evil twin,

music so demented the walls bled vibrations,

shuddered in my sleep, my life so wasted

I wondered how I managed the energy to breathe.