3 Poems

By Damon Hubbs

Money Shot

Maybe claiming to have a bomb was too much
a stylistic flourish like how birds look frozen in time
when a train is running away at 80 mph in the opposite direction

which is where I should have fled
when I saw your face tucked under the arm of the guy
ahead of me at the PNC Bank

The Palm Beach Post serving
a postscript of dissolute Tatler candids
and king in his counting house reportage:

The Mick Jagger of the Literary World
was not a member of the charitable St. George’s Society of Palm Beach
nor did he play chess or tennis with the local expats.

Yes, that bit about the bomb was too much
and the tacit conspiracy of money hunting the hunter
has the teller eyeing me like I’m a doomed man

destined for a revolving door of trials and appeals.
But no. A last hurrah towards my war bag
and an off-duty cop lines up the money shot.

Red confetti torques and trails like a showroom
but before I slip out of body I see
my strawberry Bonnie in the stolen Corolla

feel her sheer seamed pantyhose
stocking my eyes and mouth
with coins to pay rivage to the crown.

Ocracoke

O he bled!
bled all over the Buick
before we buried
the body
in Ocracoke
oh crow, cock!
okra
coke
the girl is a death trap,
keeps leaving lovey dovey
on the burner
we forgot to burn,
1,500 pounds
hidden in a load
of baby wipes
& avocados,
now we’re holed up
in the bathroom
at The Mad Crabber
waiting for the slow
boat to Florida
oh crow, cock!
we’re gonna’ play
dominoes with diamonds
we’re gonna’ blaze
like Blackbeard’s lights,
oh crow, cock!

Stick Horses

Across the board
the girls at Stoneleigh-Burnham
love the Rail Guy, he talks bullrings and bridge jumps
with the best of them

a dark horse
with green eyes like wandering guitar players;
nose, neck, and head at a starting price
to bankrupt empires

says his mother was the queen of Ladies’ Day at Ascot
says her face launched a thousand strikes on the train line from Waterloo
says his father was a gunman in the kidnapping of Shergar in ’83,
the record setting wonder horse a ransom to raise cash for the IRA

the girls are too young to know how that turned out,
too young to know his father was just a forklift operator at Logan
with a weekend gig cleaning the backstretch at Rockingham Park

but the Rail Guy knows how
to drive a flat race, how to jockey favor and monkey crouch
strum love songs with his green eyes
to chalk the odds

he buys them accessories, brushes and styles manes
plays dressage with his hobby-horses
mixing bloodlines
on the dormitory’s basement couch.

Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He’s the author of three chapbooks and a full-length collection, Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include The Crank, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Spectra, Horror Sleaze Trash, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, & others.