Western Voices: Alan Britt

Bio:

In 2018 Alan Britt served as judge for the The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award. His poetry has appeared in Verse Daily and elsewhere. He was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem and has published 17 books of poetry, his latest being Ode to Nothing (bilingual English/Hungarian: 2018) Crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge (bilingual English/Romanian): 2017; Violin Smoke (bilingual English/Hungarian: 2015). A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars he now teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT DION &

THE BELMONTS, BUT YOU WERE INTO

LITTLE ANTHONY & THE IMPERIALS

(Thank you, Dion)

You drove me home that night.

I was in no condition as I ingested

your jasmine kisses into my pores while

we reminisced the thatched roof party

two hours earlier at Riviera Beach

with tiki torches flickering to Jim

Morrison wailing “Light My Fire.”

How ironic.

You cradled my head in a jasmine

& Tanqueray perfume oozing from your

mother-of-pearl elbows, neck  & wrists.

Late blooming teenager that I was—

Still, king of South Dixie Highway,

plus queen of the gin & tonic streets—

that’s what I’ll always remember—king

& queen making the night stand still!

ACHILLES SANDAL

I don’t know why Lake Worth comes up so

often in my poems; I grew up in West Palm

Beach, Florida.

I guess fate’s morning-glory & goldfinch-speckled

eyes of opium perfume oozing from her breasts

have something to do with it.

First date beneath the spidery legs of the pier,

& that sandal orphaned for who knows how

long atop a seven foot lemon & gesso-tiled

beach wall. Typical mythology, I know, but

the best I can muster at the moment.

I don’t know why Lake Worth comes up so

often in my poems; I grew up in West Palm

Beach, Florida.

JEALOUSY

(For Jacques Britt)

The hat on my head makes me vulnerable

while looting the medicine cabinet

when out the blue comes this flea-infested

canine sublimely resistant to martyrdom

yet wise enough to lead an entire nation,

except for one measly thing, one tiny caveat.

Each night this flea-infested dog takes

up residence on my couch, drinks from

our four useless toilets and overturns

the stainless-steel kitchen garbage

pail that contains my jealousy.

Fido’s act of defiance sends the local

populace into a frenzy, causing them

to light tiki torches, load shotguns, 

and traipse through the oblivious forest.

But since I’m not about to donate my

best friend on this planet for a bunch

of illiterate, degenerate, & immoral

homo sapiens, I trade my hat for a helmet

& load my two-barreled punt instead.

You see, I don’t possess the conciliatory

nature and shrewd wisdom my sublime

companion was born with—but, hell, 

with any luck at all, we’ll both escape

the cross this time. 

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Western Voices :: Setu, February 2019