Poetry from Alan Catlin

War Diary of Yeugenia Belorusets, Ukraine 2022

The Beginning
Air Raids
Tense Silence
Bomb Shelter
An Extinguished City
Time to Be Brave
“It’s 3:30 p.m. and we’re still alive”
A Way of Life that Swallows Everything
“The night is still young”
A Blemish on the Landscape
Illusions
Too Tired for the Shelter
An Unexpected Gift
Rockets Over Kyiv
In War, One Thinks Only of War
Tactical Retreat
The Picture of the Man and the Cat
Deceptive Illusion
The Houses That Disappeared
“Kyiv will be as clean as Berlin”
“Risk of injury”
The Smell of Burning Forests
Here in Kyiv
Endless Cannonades
Islands of Temporary Calm
In the Nerve Center of Catastrophy
A Changed City
Laughter Returns to Kyiv
A City Drowns in Blood
“This diary cannot be completed; it can only be interrupted”

 
An Ya’s Ghost Music

I was certain this was a dream
Everything besides the mushroom was buried in darkness
“It’s normal that you don’t understand.” the mushroom said.
I had no choice but to trust the mushroom
It was not until later, after the sonata had ended and I was
	stepping into the shower, that I noticed the musky
	smell on my fingers.”

“Can you tell Bowen our town has turned orange?”
“I can send you a picture if you like.”
“It happened the night the dust landed on the river.”
“He fell in and nobody was there to help.”

Apparently, Julia hung herself in the middle of the night
She must have taken a shower beforehand because when they
	found her, her hair was frozen through
“From afar she looked like a giant icicle.”
“I didn’t think she was real.”

I wasn’t sleeping at all at night
I unfolded the instructions that came with one of the mushroom kits
Watch the mushrooms grow
	



 
Random Entries From R. Crumb’s Dream Journal

Dream of Burning Insects
Dream of Right-Wing Christians: I am murdered
Recurring Travel Anxiety Dream
Dream I Will Myself to Shrink in Size
Erotic Dream of Patty and Aline
Dream of Throwing Snowballs
Recurring Dream of Underground Caves
Dream of Being Captured by Government Agency
Dream of Cruel, Sarcastic Brazilian Man
Dream of Double Sex with Aline
Same Day: Dream of Zaro’s Death Ray Machine
Deam of Playing Old-Time Music with Some Young Men 
	and Boys
Dream of Runaway Camel
Dream of Assertive Girl at a Party
Dream of Miniature Gothic Sculpture
Dream of Fucking a Woman
Dream of Finding Old Records and Talking to My Mother
 	on the Telephone
Dream of Scorpion and Shit
Dream of Family of Giants
Dream of Advancing Flood Waters
Nightmare of Hovering Presence
Dream of Flying Saucers and Talking to Aliens

 

Marianne Faithfull

You can’t always get what you want
As tears go by
This little bird
Sister morphine
Just like a woman
First person to say fuck in a mainstream movie
The Girl on the Motorcycle
Naked Under Leather
The Seven Deadly Sins
Pirate Jenny
Ophelia
Florence Nightingale
Maria Theresa
Alice in Wonderland
Irina Palm
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Three Penny Opera
I Got You Babe Duet with David Bowie
Broken English
20 the Century Blues
A Secret Life
Dangerous Acquaintance(s)
Vagabond Ways
Easy Come, Easy Go
Kissin’ Time: Parental Warning Explicit Content
Blazing Away: Explicit Content with no Parental Warning

 
Myths to Live By: Official U.S. Government Booklet 1950

Your chances of surviving an atomic attack are better than
	you thought
Close to an explosion, your chances are one out of ten
Beyond a half mile, your chances of survival increase rapidly
Injury by radioactivity does not necessarily mean you are 
	doomed to die or be crippled
Don’t be misled by wild talk of “super super bombs”
Doubling a bomb’s power doesn’t mean doubling the damage it
	will do
Blast and heat are the biggest dangers
To protect yourself from blast, lie down in a shielded spot
In your house lie down against a wall
Outdoors: get next to a solid building
To escape temporary blindness, bury your face in your arms
Flash burns are a serious cause of injury: shield yourself from
	the flash
Even a little material gives protection from flash burns so be 
	sure to dress properly
Radioactivity is the only way besides size in which atomic bombs
	differ from ordinary ones
We know more about radioactivity than we do about colds
Injury from radioactivity depends upon the power of the rays and
	particles, how long you were exposed and much of your
	body was hit
Explosive radioactivity is the most important kind, but it is only
	for a moment
Even canned and bottled foods may be irradiated, but will be
	safe to sue them
Vomiting and diarrhea are the first signs of radioactivity sickness
Even if you should get severe radiation sickness you would have 
	a better than even chance of recovery
There is little you can do to protect your house from the blast
It is better to figure on collapse of the upper floors and to take
	cover in the basement
YOU CAN SURVIVE

 
Aspects of Barthes' Mourning 

First wedding night. But first mourning night?
She would say with relief: the night is finally over
In the sentence, “She is no longer suffering.” To what,
	to whom does she refer? What does the present
	tense mean?
Don’t say mourning. It’s too psychoanalytic: I’m not mourning.
	I am suffering.
How am I going to manage to live here all alone? And, at
	the same time, it’s clear there is no other place.
Sometimes, very briefly, a blank moment-a kind of numbness-
	which is not a moment of forgetfulness. That terries me.
…henceforth and forever, I am my mother
I was not like her, since I did not die (at the same time) as her.
The measurement of mourning. Eighteen months for mourning
 	a father, a mother.

3 thoughts on “Poetry from Alan Catlin

  1. @StephenJarrellWilliams – I agree that Alan Catlin is genius — he’s like an all-seeing-eye on American culture — highbrow, lowbrow, unibrow, whatever, his fevered poetic insight reports on all — he’s [i]fantastic[i], like Borges’s “Aleph” — American style

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