Six Poems by Alan Catlin

 

Self-Portrait as Greek Tragedy:

 

With Iphigenia on the beach. 

Antigone on the battlefield. 

                       

Cassandra unhinged.

 

All those Trojan women, falling.

 

 

 

Nightmare with wind farms in it 

 

Rotary blades cut the sunset

into tiny shafts of light. 

Wind tunnels the covered bridges

over dry bed creeks.

                                   

In the morning, the sowed fields

are barren.

 

 

 

Desertion: A Still Life

 

Quart boxes for homegrown produce.

Broken ladder-back chair by disused

                                    barn, an overturned wheelbarrow;

one handle missing.

 

 

Overheard: Two English Majors Talking

 

"So, what was it that

you liked about Milton?"

 

"Lucifer, he was one wicked

son of a bitch."

 

 

 

                                    Lady’s Room Graffiti

 

                                    Is Leo still God? 

This is very confusing. 

I'd like to know who

                                    to pray to.

                       

 

Last light on lilacs in Winter:

 

Bare ice-coated limbs

glisten in last light. 

 

High gray clouds

                                    rimmed in red, layer

                                    blue backdrops of sky.

Alan Catlin is an oft published. online and in print, poet and fiction writer. His most recent full-length book is Exterminating Angels from Kelsay Books.