disobedience

by Damon Hubbs

for Alice Notley

To face the dead

I turn to Greek epics

and the restaurant in Stockbridge

famous for its massacre.

"So Alice was a librarian?” I ask

but the waitress is already telling me

about tomato shortages in Nigeria

and how L’Étranger was once a big deal;

a bewildering combustion of Spring

has me collaging a gazelle

out of boxcutters,

dreaming of the underworld

dreaming of Victoria Spivey at Folk City

with her rubber snake dress.

It’s Tuesday, May 20th

a flashback to a future death

“One day, I awoke,”

and all the objects were defined—

my wallet, my lighter

teacup and saucer, brass tacks

purple dress, cherry tart,

the cardboard packet for a toilet tank part.

I flip horizontal panels

to create hundreds of different faces

because you hung a roof over our feathers

at The Lab and St. Mark’s Church,

troubling the scene with disobedience

the beauty of the line

like a guillotine,

and to think the Jabberwocky Bookshop

didn’t even carry your books

the last time I checked. I like to see what

I will say

when I jump the turnstile

disembodied, not giving a damn— 

will it be as I remembered

balm and lamentation and a garland

of the finest lightbulbs?

BIO: Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He's the author of the full-length collection Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). He has also published four poetry chapbooks, The Day Sharks Walk on Land, Coin Doors & Empires, Charm of Difference, and The Railroad Poems.

From avant-garde journals to indie sleaze rags, Damon’s poems have been featured in a wide variety of publications, including: Revolution John, BRUISER, Dark Winter Lit, Broken Antler, Apocalypse Confidential, Farewell Transmission, The Gorko Gazette, Spectra, Book of Matches, Otoliths, Utriculi, Ranger Magazine, Don’t Submit!, Dreich, Cajun Mutt Press, Yellow Mama, Horror Sleaze Trash, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Beatnik Cowboy, Roi Fainéant, Bullshit Lit, Urban Pigs Press, Misery Tourism, Antiphony, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Sparks of Calliope, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, the engine(idling, Synchronized Chaos, and more.