After a lifetime of hard
drinking his red eyes
looked like twin suns
of a faraway world setting
into a dead place of sodden,
fetid swamp and noxious air.
The music of the careening
spheres inside him was
a living, breathing auditory
rap like a disco inferno
hallucination stuck in an
endless repetitive groove
no amount of alcohol could
drown out or subdue.
What he needed no bar
could provide, he was so far
beyond provision now the chorus
of voices trapped inside him,
crying out for help were like
the places between radio stations
where nothing recognizable
can ever be heard.
--
Alan Catlin has published in journals from the days of the mimeo revolution, in small press venues, to larger, more mainstream presses, to the internet poetry journal scene. He has three full length collections coming out in 2023 from Kelsay Books, Impspired and Roadside Press.