The last time

Rotten Richie and I
did crazy shit together
was on a New Year’s Eve
closing shift break
in the late 80’s.
A couple of innocent
beers at the party
in the green house
next door with the girls
turned into a hook up
for bong hits on a dark
street behind St Anne’s
Home for Wayward Girls
with Doctor Rick driving
and providing.
I was way too old
to blame my unwise choices
on the follies of youth
or being in the moment.
I was reading Oscar Wilde
in those days and he said
the only way to deal
with temptation was to
give into it, which was
a beyond a poor excuse
given how he ended up.
Somehow, I managed
to close the bar at four
a.m., as usual, survived
yet another sunrise Rich
driving home drunk and
stoned to Led Zeppelin.

Some of those years are
a complete blur to me
now, and, in retrospect,
were then too. Rich climbed
the stairway to heaven years
ago. I wonder if he met God
there, the way he always
claimed he had on acid.

Alan Catlin has a new book coming out, a collection of historically based political poems called Still Life with Apocalypse. The end was yesterday. His most recent book before that was Work Anxiety Poems from Roadhouse Press.