Four Poems by Damon Hubbs

 

My Irish Poet Friends Sure Don’t Smile at Saratoga

 

for John Doyle

 

And it’s too bad, really.

Because after pocketing more crowns

than a king at the Pardubice steeplechase

 

I thought you knew a thing or two

about tack and tape, your pick riding vertigo

in Taxis Ditch, past Havel’s Jump to the Irish Bank.

 

Gerald is at the barn walking hots

his nickname’s “The Monk,” quinella fella

of the Leaky Roof Circuit, says he has a tip

 

got Muldoon’s goons sizing Semtex at Saratoga,

hard boot and harrow smile, the sky a red shoe boil;

like capture the flag at Ticonderoga

 

we’re chalk players claiming box, shoe-in

until the House of Upsets drops a coffin bone.

So much for heaven in the afternoon,

 

let’s blow this popsicle stand

try our hand with the girls in Polo,

chute the Travers Canoe to the Galway Races—

 

look at that turn of foot

beats mugshots on the morning line,

in the frame for old Muldoon’s crimes.

 

Riddle of Steel

 

Beyond the mists of time

In the fall of ’82

My brother started a band

Named Thulsa Doom,

Bought a Strat from The Eighth Note

With money earned from three paper routes,

Found a drummer named Lotus

By posting flyers at a noticeboard at the Autumn;

Day and night, again

And again my brother’s turntable

Spinning like the Wheel of Pain;

He’s shackled to power chords

Pentatonic scales

Denim battle vests

Lined with crudely stitched gore

And black magic marker.   

 

I, his chronicler

Four years younger,

A decade smarter

Watch as he masters the universe,

Learns the riddle of steel

Opens for Vicious Angel at the Chestnut St. Theater,

The girls slinking into his snake cult

As math equations pit fight on my troubled brow;

And yet he still found time

Time to toy

Time to whoop swords and punch camels;

Us, waiting for the HBO Guide to arrive

So we could plan our monthly late nights

Of L (language), N (nudity) and V (violence)

Watching, again and again

Doom’s children lose grip of their mother’s hand.

 

Dog Star

 

From where I live

I can see

Girls on copper grass

Doing gymnastics;

Hot air balloons

Bending backwards

Like armfuls of jelly bracelets.

 

As the rock stars

Of their day

They have no love

For boys

Who dream

Of wooing Star

 

And so the sky screws black.

Tar and torpor are afoot,

And summer’s last tape

All but breasted; 

You come and go

 

Talking karma

Stringing along a Slush Puppie,

Cartwheeling the heart

One-handed.

 

I can see

From where I live

A platform game

Of snakes and scorpions;

Tar and torpor are afoot

And summer’s last tape

All but breasted

 

Yet still we crave

The golden age,

Racing the beam

And dying fall

Like lost boys

On a merry-go-round.

 

We’re merrily on our way to nowhere in particular

-Mr. Toad

 

On Our Way

 

Down I-95 in naked weather

Recklessly asunder

Past summer’s unravelled farms

The hubbub of the pub

And TNT factory

Tudor estate hedged behind the artery

The crossback ringing

Until the halberds drop wildly

 

And so you rise from the grave

Drive your way

Through the painted plywood flats

Crash the doors of the hall

Like a stack of plates

Joyride I-95 until the bell claps

And the prayerwheel parts your hat

From hair

 

Let the ride begin again

Left track, right track

Your motorcar in different scenes

But the one way street’s the same

A shootout between police and weasels

Winky’s two beer spin

And in the devil’s mouth

Careens the locomotive wind.

Damon Hubbs is the author of three chapbooks: Coin Doors & Empires (Alien Buddha Press), The Day Sharks Walk on Land (Alien Buddha Press) and Fly Creek (forthcoming from Naked Cat Publishing). He lives in New England. Twitter: @damon_hubbs