Poetry: Selections from Damon Hubbs

Pier Boys

 

leaning into the rails

we watch the drones

 

and the drones

watch us

 

bait

&

switch

 

the fishing pier

on Avenue K——

has fillet tables set

with blood

 

men slap

bones

on folding

card tables

 

krishnas salute the sun

om krishnaya namah

 

& beatifically

enlighten

money

from pockets

 

we talk

shipping lanes, ventanas

take out 3 million dollar tanks

with $200 grenades

 

the roar of waves

drag racing

on hard cast sand

Berlin

guy at the bowl-la-

    rama has woolen slippers and a slow horse 

         look, a striking 

 

oh, Vienna smile 

    he spares only the swordtails 

         and mollies tanked against 

              the wall 

 

by the Pro Shop and Keno screen. 

    Mollies get aggressive

         if their tank mates 

              aren’t peaceful enough.  

         

in from the cold, our birdwatcher

    master of flaps and seals, or 

         a ghoul playing candlepin 

              on cemetery lane

 

no bumpers, games without 

    frontiers, take a stitch, drop 

         a stitch, the specific combination 

    

of knits and purls 

    passing secret messages 

         in the warmth 

              of woolen slippers—

 

identity blown, the backstop bowl-la

    rama as outdated as an innocent 

         postcard

 

it’s twenty-two degrees in Berlin. 

    you can’t go gray 

         with woolens in NH

The Tannery

 

I have a coffee at The Tannery.

I don’t normally go out for coffee

let alone have a coffee at The Tannery.

The Tannery is in one of those coastal New England towns

known for whale watching.

It’s possible summering was invented in this coastal

New England town but I don’t know

for sure and haven’t seen it mentioned

on any of the town’s many historical plaques.  

What I do know is that when you’re between things

it’s not impossible to find yourself

at a place like The Tannery,

having a coffee, waiting it out.

The Tannery has many upscale shops

home goods, mostly, with names

like Beach Plum and The Clipper Shop

or something and something by-the-sea.

The sign on the door of the Dance Studio

says No Wet Boots in Dance Studio.

Before it was a marketplace with coffee shops

upscale home goods stores and a Dance Studio,

The Tannery was a factory that used raw animals hides

to make leather shoes, gloves and handbags.

For years the vestiges and waste of the leather

tanning operation bled into the soil and nearby river

arsenic, chromium, oil, dioxins —the ground so saturated

with chemicals that work crews hit chunks of blue dirt

five feet under the foundation. This isn’t mentioned

on any of the town’s many historical plaques

but it’s something you think about

when you’re between things, having a coffee at The Tannery

trying to make a poem from scraps and hides,

watching women with fine and long-fingered hands

dredge phones from overpriced bags.

The Rescue

 

I’m on the balcony

when an on-board butler

appears with a tray

of vodka and cranberry

highballs

 

winged infusions flat washed

like blood in an IV, a good return

and just a shade

off the color of the sun

plunging the horizon to the awwww

of 3,200 passengers

the rooms so luxurious

you don’t want to close your eyes

but the sunsets

really bring it home

 

so when the captain spots a boat

cobbled together

with metal and Styrofoam

the feeling of loss

hits us hard

 

will the Cruise Director

stand under the spotlight

near the grand piano

as he has done every night

for the past week

to introduce the entertainment act?

 

The operation takes less than an hour.

Love letters, prayer books, toothbrushes

I.D. cards, glasses, headphones, jewelry

and Fanta soda cans float in the wake.

We have a quick lunch in The Galley

and watch “the rescue.”

Numbers Stations

 

one-way

traffic

on the radio

cockpit shot in darkness blue

and orange gauges

the dashboard’s dual zone

cryptography

deck of Luckies in the console  

windburned melody, band to band

new wave

 

a voice counts in German

through the denied areas.

a child recites letters in English

through the discreet areas.

Nancy Adams Susan.

The Swedish Rhapsody.

“Now we’ll begin a mathematics

review assignment for members

of the 27th expeditionary unit of the

distance learning university.”

 

cruising, the big black gullwing bucket

past Asphodel Fields

where men pretend to feed the ducks

around a pond

bloodshot with pitiless moon

pulling, at last

down a private drive,

dog on a chain, the house

of Hades floodlit in the distance

Damon Hubbs is interested in pulpy paperbacks and films with over-saturated colors. His poems have been featured in Book of Matches, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Otoliths, Roi Fainéant Press, Cajun Mutt Press, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Beatnik Cowboy, and others. Damon lives in New England.