Among the Ruins: Two Poems by Damon Hubbs

Red Hills

Fuckless in France, except for Héloïse  —theologically.
Eggs, trussed-up granola. The sun pissing down its leg
like a testament to the still life’s staying power.
La guimbarde, as the kids say.

When we hit the modern era
satan’s stained eyes
looked on
from tall cathedrals.

Miss Carson’s latest poem.
What shit.
The microphone is two rooms away.
I leave letters on the crypts in Père Lachaise.

Like the Admiral’s interest in exorcism,
I overdrink.
KATA TON DAIMONA EAUTOU.
And you haven’t answered a text

since mother died.
Then another friend skied off a cliff in Colorado.
Down and back to the coffin house,
I’m resigned.

There are loads of spoils
you used to say. And many interesting roads.
Destruction is the cause of coming into being.
A taxi in Africa waits in the red hills.

Four Friends, Two Marriages, Eight Affairs

All of it —thinking bearish
in this bull market. An Uber
to her Ipatiev House —Maine, Cape Cod —Albany.
Spacious rooms the color of imperial snow,
a commanding view of the industrial heartbeat;
our cheeks redden
like holy fools in caps and bells.
You tug my rigging.

The killfloor of the Army-Navy game
black op eyes like oil spills,
tea and toast
prefab sprout with cars and girls.
You dressed in your colonial best.
Too much praise likely hastened
by psychiatric drugs. Yes,
I called my mother grace…

The fly climbs the rim of the soup;
the weather weeping. Quizzo at Lloyd’s
and learning nothing. In terms
of the garden where the muse walks
—Stuart collar, Nagant revolver.
Ooh I have this old gun, too.
Days of being the commander of beasts
left me nothing.

Author: Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. Recent publications include Rind & Root, Farewell Transmission, Revolution John, Azarão Lit Journal, The Gorko Gazette, Horror Sleaze Trash, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collections Nighttime Logic and Venus at the Arms Fair. His latest collection, Bullet Pudding, is forthcoming from Roadside Press. He is the editor of Ape House Magazine.

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