The Literary Review
She takes a job
tending bar at a shot
and beer place where
old guys and dead beats
spend their pension
and social security checks.
Doesn’t know anything
about sports and could
care less. Doesn’t know
anything about tending
bar either but it will do
as a job until the next one
comes along. Wears a
Free Mumia t-shirt and
one of the dead beats
asked her what a Mumia
was? She fills him in.
He listens politely then
asks, “Who do you like
in the Super Bowl?”
The next day she wears
a Ramones t-shirt to work.
Still doesn’t know who’s
playing in the Super Bowl.
- Alan Catlin
“What the hell.”
He said.
I was working
the night his
wife told him
she loved him but
but she couldn’t live
with him any more
He was well
on his way
to inhaling
half a case of beer
in the bar
roughly half
of his daily intake
looked as if
he hadn’t slept
in a week
which he probably
hadn’t
thanks to those
white cross pills
he nabbed on
a drug raid and
liberated for
personal use
He couldn’t
understand what
she was on about
Shook his head
and said, “I gave
up smoking for her.”
- Alan Catlin
Asked why he shot
the guy he replied
that the victim had
posted rival gang
symbols on his
Facebook page and
said all kinds of
disrespectful things
about my clan.
So, yeah, I shot him.
Wouldn’t you?
- Alan Catlin
Cleaning
When I as 17
we were basically homeless
My father said,
“Your mother and I are
going to be living in a motel,
what are you and your sister
doing?”
I got a job cleaning
rooms in a hotel, sleeping
in a janitor’s closet
I could barely fit a
ratty old mattress in
After my sister,
got out of detention,
she got a job there too
We took turns working
and sleeping on that
ratty old mattress
I’m not proud of
what happened to me
but you have to live
I’m still cleaning rooms
but mostly in rich
people’s houses
It pays pretty good if
you know what you’re doing
and you actually show up
regular when you’re supposed to
Now my sister’s dead,
47 years old and she
died in her sleep
of natural causes,
a drug overdose
That’s a natural cause
in the world we came from
- Alan Catlin
Alongside the Liffey
Statues of a starving
family struggling
to remain upright, some
failing, other attempting
to carry on. These life
like people a memorial
for those who died during
abject Famine years
when even the grass
they once walked on
was something they ate.
Dublin tour buses slow
down now as they pass
the site for thirty seconds,
just long enough
for cell photo snaps,
a movie maybe, then
move on at speed
to the next stop before
the banquet at day’s end.
- Alan Catlin
