She did porn by Alan Catlin

She did porn

as if it were an exercise,
a personal training experience,
Lilias, Yoga and You, contortions
and contusions, fast times for
speedy ladies, skin popping
where the wounds wouldn’t show,
colored contacts and dark glasses,
all outdoor shoots, emotionally
drained but proud to be a hard
working girl, always on call,
even bent, less than forty-eight
hours of out of ER and convinced
life wasn’t worth living: the razor blade
solution.  There’s a right way and
a wrong way to do everything,
even dying, moving on, lying down,
filming around black stitched
wrists loosely wrapped in white
gauze, the final solution.

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It was just another winter by Alan Catlin

It was just another winter

of Bob Dylan and death,
nineteen sixty whatever
and the kid who sat next
to me in Medieval History
had jumped off the Hotel Utica
after mid-term failing grades
had gone out and no one would
sit in that seat as if I too might
go over the edge or that the chair
was haunted by his spirit, the same
kind of spirit I saw in her eyes
dancing close to me to “Like a
Rolling Stone”, the long version,
at some beer blast just this side of
ice hell, vocals by some local loser
who couldn’t carry a tune, hold a note,
but who knew all the words which is
what I was listening for, her body so
close to mine, I thought we were almost
one, both of her arms, her hands locked
around my neck, her lips on mine,
her tongue, and then she was saying,
“Love me just like a woman.”
And I wondered who her fancyman was,
wondered where he had gone and why me?
The scent of her, the taste, this girl
from the north country like the Dylan
folk song I loved but where was I?
My head full of confusion boats,
crazy dreams and cheap beer,
incapable of love, “I can’t.” I said.
“Make believe,” she said, “and I will too.”
Then she kissed me hard and long
and deep as if she really meant it.

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Used Cars by Alan Catlin

 
We used
cars the way
Bonnie & Clyde
used banks.
We left them
everywhere in
ruins
cracked windshields
bald tires
holes rusted
through floors
you could see
through.
The local heat
said they
could always tell
which used cars
were ours as
they always
smelled of blood
Ginseng tea
and rosehips.
Sooner or later
we’d get caught
in the act
of misusing
them drinking
quart bottles
of Jaguar Malt Liquor
high speed
running that
last red light
even we knew
we’d never make.

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