Damon Hubbs


Abecedarian, or A Comedy in 26 Letters

Ado, teasing eavesdrops, mis-totings —such is the house husband’s day
By and by his one act play is announced by a fog of swisher sweets, the
Cathedral of liquor as wide ranging as his conversation with the iguana, 
Davis, as in Betty, who drinks Blue Nun and writes Follies in Blue Exam notebooks.
Eau de nil and rose, the color of the sun and the house husband’s slippers,
Frightening things, whispers the iguana… our neighbors. Screwing the ball with comic devices,
Generating slapstick with stepladders, pulleys and white paint. The house
Husband, softly slippered, nods and nods and nods, yawns twice then prods the
Ice-cream trolley for something sweet. He is “a fellow that hath had losses,” after all.
Just then, a knock. “Anyone home? Hello,” says the postman, voice like art deco, a raconteur 
Killing it with verbal slips so overeggs the lines can barely breathe.
“Love a drink. Yes, thank you. The day-to-day affairs of internal life can’t be fact checked. 
My comedies keep the gossips guessing to this day.” The postman plays us like an audience in
New Orleans, one syllable shy from getting shot by the house husband, who aerates 
Out of thin air, a gun —dimly lit, sentimental, unrealistic. The scene is a memory play, re-
Played, like the release of swans into the Avon. The house husband doesn’t stage the moment, 
Quits the gun, leaves it to the audience’s imagination. “We’re a jolly platoon, aren’t we?”
Replies the iguana. The house husband lights a swisher sweet, festoons the radio with 
Schlager pop, intones: “I need to get out, Davis. Socialize. This information blockade has
Trapped me several steps behind. I’m out of touch. Out of reach. Hemmed in.” And 
Under the UBV glow of a 1960s lampshade, Davis tops his Blue Nun, pops a 
Valium, scratches his bearded dewlap and [sounding a shrill whistle] quotes Peter 
Weiss: “Alone with your ideas about the world which no longer fit the world outside.” “Exx
Xactly!” cries the house husband. [The two figures sit drinking, laughing, crying, knowing 
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks] The curtain
Zips across the window. The house husband and Davis black out.   
 


Salò

after Pasolini

The day of my death 
Did not arrive in Trieste or Undine 
Along a linden boulevard

But on a deserted beach at Ostia 
Scrapped with broken washbasins 
And old tires.

See how those bastards 
Come and dump their rubbish 
Here. 

I’ll be OK now.
But the gang of thieves at the billiard bar,
The death commandoes in the FIAT 

Beating with fists 
And sticks— 
Their strategy of tension is gospel.

Later, Ruby the Heart Stealer
Breaks into show business
Throwing bunga bunga parties in Milan.
 


Lions Trapped in Campervans

What, then, shall we choose?
Weight or lightness?
                               Milan Kundera

in the beer garden at the Ostrava zoo
there’s kielbasa the size of small intestines
a group of metalheads 
talk about the death of Milan Kundera 
with surprising lightness 
considering it’s ninety degrees in the shade 
and they’re wearing black shirts 
with skullmen and forges, 
35-hundredweight hammers
release the rope 
that drops the ear-splitting smack 
of West Midland stampers; 
like the screaming drill drill drill 
of the blue-and-red painted Mandrill
these metal men at the zoo
with their families,
fires fading to grays,
a colliery of cool 
toiling in the darkness 
like lions trapped in campervans 
 


Lightning, Tarmac

Zurich airport July 10, 2023

is the lightning on the tarmac
the work of a gypsy in shuttle bus no. 3
possible, although unlikely—
just a woman with Art Nouveau eyes 
suggesting old magic

but still, those eyes 
this lightning on the tarmac—
curving lines and arches
in the muted pastels of a morning 
arriving, although delayed. 

It could be simpler. 
It always is. 
Maybe her eyes are lit up 
with memories of the Sprüngli macaroons 
she bought in `76

or the floral lines 
of Federer’s backhand 
shepherding the meadows of Wimbledon— 
a low ringing cowbell guiding 
the lightning home
 


Me & My Surrealist Friends 

My surrealist friends have sleepovers 
And give each other Mohawks;
In the morning they roll eggs up staircases
And drink from teacups covered with gazelle fur. 

My surrealist friends piss in readymade urinals
And form collectives against zoning laws 
Seeking to regulate the persistence of memory 
And the times they playfully pissed in readymade urinals.

This one surrealist friend 
Has an art space called Hotel Eternity
Where he makes poems with rock, paper, scissors 
To the sound of 24 hour house music.

This other surrealist friend
Descends a staircase on the way to the library
Slips on a banana peel 
And sees pointillist Venetian blinds. 

My surrealist friends are big in Australia
Big in Philly
Big in Minnesota
And pleased to announce: Big in Japan.

Me & my surrealist friends 
Meet at Applebee’s for a round of Exquisite Corpse.
We eat edible beauty and smoke pipes shaped like anteaters;
Ceci n 'est une pomme. Ceci n 'est une abeille. 

Damon Hubbs is the author of two chapbooks — Coin Doors & Empires (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) and The Day Sharks Walk on Land (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). Recent poems have been featured in Roi Fainéant Press, Does It Have Pockets, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, D.O.R, and elsewhere. His third chapbook, Charm of Difference, is forthcoming in 2024 from Back Room Poetry. He lives in New England. Twitter: @damon_hubbs

 
 

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