Number 9 Dream, Just Before Finals, Winter 1969


After all the cafes have been

closed, the beatniks busted,

hipsters, gone cats, have all switched

from smoke to hooch, three piece

suits, suburban commutes and thirty

year mortgage nightmares,

only the black walls and hollow

shells of the fifties left behind.

Happening bistros are now dive

bars with names like Horny Toad,

Happy Hobbit, Emergency Room,

graffito encouraged in black light

back rooms, glow in the dark phrases:

“War is not good for children and

other living things”,

“Sterilize LBJ-No more ugly children.”

Slogans fading in real light around

last call, overseas war images on

black and white TV at end of well-

carved, cigarette burned bar.

Doors “Crystal Ship” segues into

Jim Hendrix, “All Along the

Watchtower,” long haired, deadend

crew’s, final shooters for the road

washed down with warm, flat beer.

Outside, snow falling, a foot on

the ground and more to come,

nowhere to go but go we must.



Alan Catlin has several new books about to be released: Landscapes of the Exiled (Dos Madres), Unattended (Cyberwit) and Work Anxiety Poems (Roadside Press). Also in the works a book of short stories, The Naked City from Anxiety Press and Still Life with Apocalypse from Shelia na gig in 2026.