Three Poems by Damon Hubbs

Lounge Car

 

consider the train

     & the forest’s off-season cargo

          puzzling the carriage window

               in red & yellow schemes

 

considering the station master is on leave

     the train leaves from anywhere.

          There is subterfuge.

              The moon hangs like a hospital gown

 

dragging on dirty parquet tiles. The train passes a river

     & a house & inside the house

          lives man who hasn’t looked at the river

               or the house in 20 years

 

little dumb waiters wait

flattering,

trained as feathered hats

in a forest of off-season birds

 

in the breakfast car, eyes crumpeted 

     with Marlboros & mascara, she says

          “Are you reading

               the French symbolists?”

 

the florist & bride-to-be

     postman & tennis pro, the opium dealer

     & financier

ride first class

 

in a lounge car to hell. 

     The magician’s escaped rabbits

          take cover in a top hat &

               consider the rain.

 

Quiet Car

 

nobody is quiet in the quiet car. 

     there’s talk of spring training & true crime podcasts.

          the air smells faintly of cherry lozenge.

               there are class distinctions & a lady who vanishes

                    to the bathroom every 10 minutes

 

“I found it sharp & twisty,” she said. “Enthralling.”

     “Well constructed,” agreed the woman

          in the Juicy Couture tracksuit. “Multilayered.

               As I listened I realized I knew something

                    that might hold the key.”

 

beyond anti-vandal glass

     the landscape is confined

          & exhilarated, guillotine

               sashing the Hudson

                    in a marquetry of midafternoon light

 

“Alibis are based on accurate timetables,” she

     said & when she said it she realized

          she always wanted to be

               at the center of a tragedy.

 

Sleeper Car

 

moon, moon, on a black field counting sheep.

     the Pullman pulls-on, station to station

          a Breuhaus roomette of tubular-framed chairs, a sleeper

               with berths slipped together like cranial sutras, headboard

      

bones stopblocked by the first class attendant’s fresh

     linens & soft smile. but when I wake the pieces don’t fit

          it’s a dream or a flashback

               of a dream where I have eyes lidded & balled

 

like Sylvia Plath

     & dance with all the sad girls at the Batcave.

          I’m getting better, my husband says

               my sleeper car sidekick with gum on his shoes

                    & green, green as a goblin with jealousy

 

of bats, the belfry— a beige, tunnel vision man

     who doesn’t know that a dead body sets up the story.

          but what’s marriage if not two people acting together

              to be deadlier than one. we’ll talk through

 

the plot. call deathhawks from the shadows.

     moon, moon, on a black field counting sheep

          how long is lights out?

               But the distance fails to arrive.

                    & mountains are ambivalent suggestion.

 

Damon Hubbs: Constant gardener. Casual birder. Loves a good scone, pulpy paperbacks, synthesizers. Recent poems featured in Cajun Mutt Press, Fevers of the Mind, Horror Sleaze Trash & Apocalypse Confidential.