THREE POEMS by DAMON HUBBS

Seven Lines & One from Catullus

You’re impressed with the Prada knockoffs

I suckle gelato from the she-wolf & mind the storm

maybe we should have gone to California 

someplace where love is less gladiatorial

someplace where I don’t carry slender arrows & a sword like Caravaggio. 

He cut a hole in the sky to let in more light to paint, as if to say

give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.

Our navels have grown too big for that.


Breakup Song, You're Too Kind

in the fad churn of my Mega Records dreams 

your low-rise jeans are renaissance     our days like FRUits Magazines 

bubbly in Diesel Stylelab     in my Mega Records dreams 

i call you Josie & you say m’kay     Pussycat      

our winking futurism hyped like Missy Elliot      but now 

you’re blowin’ up my pager & my left eye’s like a waterfall

you say the error is coded into me     

your name tee says you’re too kind     i knew you were

only pretending to be nice, hope you got that shirt on half price

me, I’ve got my boyband body armor on     besides

your Baby Phat was never all that     

your Bath & Body Works just a siren song 

for blobjects spun from circle jerks


delirium Astronauts

under the firmament, we divide the waters

& add a day to the earth’s rotation. It’s love at first sight

or theia mania. Skyward we command the ship 

write love letters in which every word is yes 

our fingertips are crackling stars

& like John Donne we wear hats as big as continents. 

We tilt & kick in apogee, levitate like birds in circuitry 

write love letters in which every word is yes   

we are stark blue nudes     hot Saturns     masters of revels

commanding the ship     til the sky spits the nipple 

til hysteria     where did you go, my darling—

my atoms belong to you


Damon Hubbs writes poems about Thulsa Doom, Italo disco, & girls who cry at airports. He's the author of three chapbooks (most recently “Charm of Difference," from Back Room Poetry). Newer work appears/is forthcoming in BRUISER, Don't Submit!, Lothlorien Poetry JournalA Thin Slice of Anxiety, Riggwelter Press, & elsewhere. Twitter @damon_hubbs.

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