Poetry: Selections From Damon Hubbs

Brunch on Bernauer Strasse

Isabelle wants to know if Anna still wears pink socks

Mark’s boss has TB

Of your fabulous red smock nothing can be said 

and when Helen pulls up in her little car all the dogs start barking

Apollinaire’s dog barked at lilacs, she says

which is as charming as the work of the fireworker

The nibble and bait of brunch is first rate

and the trinket box with the wandering eye 

is so perfect in the landscape it could have grown there

Mark had a dream he was in the smoking lounge at the Miami airport

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

and we’re reassured on that account 

before the talk turns to Haneke

and Croatia’s Handball victory 

 

Listen Mark I have something important to say 

The transplants from Ohio ate all the Black Forest cake

Do you know these women wrestling in an arena of mud

The anarchist bookstore is having a potluck

So it’s true

It’s true

I’m doubling back 

My wife’s periods are as intense as Holy Week

Make no mistake the weather has divided us 

There’s a better chance you’ll be shot jumping West 

from your apartment

All this talk of backs and fronts 

while the high priestess 

sells roses to boys playing hangman.  

 

 

Platz der Luftbrücke

After the divorce I ride the U-Bahn 

with Heinrich and it’s like walking across the sea  

with a lit candle. The train is yellow cars 

and epilepsy. The bottle girls are sad posting again  

says Heinrich. They love fiercely 

and with gondoliering tongues.

Someone is talking about the classical galleries at the Met

the stealthiest painter, the way the scene ironizes

as the herdsman herd us along

 

knock knocking like Catherine’s wheel

past light miscarried under vaulted ceilings 

past buskers playing chess

past spies among the watermelons,  

O the woman carrying eggs looks ill. 

The clock is barking, the clock is barking

and Heinrich dreams

of eating soup at Dasquise’s red leather banquette. 

 

 

Stieg bar

There’s a red-haired girl 

at Stieg bar who says

that doppelgängers are ideal partners

These industrial streets are like that 

There’s a dead dog winking under every porch 

I’m tiled in grey with black accents and sucking my toe

in the corner

I’ve never met a Polish man who’s a happy drunk

says Anna, and I agree

these are red days

There’s no doubt my successor 

twirls a bag of milk 

to the sound of emergency sirens

I’m on the glass 

with a carnival of nose bleeds

watching a flock of birds 

fly from the Virgin’s belly

Anna, you know full well to expect delays

Tell Helen to pick up the apfelstrudel at Café Einstein

Tell my successor 

to come in from the cold. I’m exhausted 

on the way to somewhere else. 

*Stieg bar was originally published at Spectra

 

 

 

 

 

Damon Hubbs is a poetry editor at Blood+Honey. He's the author of the full-length collection Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include BRUISER, Ranger Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Don't Submit!, Horror Sleaze Trash, & others. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. He lives in New England.