Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance, by Alan Catlin

Young Farmers, photography by August Sander (Germany), 1914.

Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance

They look as if they were
characters of a Beckett play
stuck in some no man’s land
between one of those places
where people are buried up
to their necks in refuse or worse,
and another, where all the dwellings
have been burned out and partially
rebuilt, then abandoned once
the will to go on flagged and couldn’t
be revived.  The ill-fitting suits
they wear convey a message:
we’re here at the wake for the food 
and drink and we’ll gladly sneak
out behind the seen-better-days
cottages for a snog with a lass
or maybe dance a jig if music
should happen in between toasts
for the dearly departed,:“May he go
in peace and always have the wind at
his back.”  None of them do bereavement
or real joy either, but they will take
a drink, if offered, maybe two or
three and then, whatever chaos ensues
will make what remains of the night
a memorable one.  They have no clue
what any of this means or whether 
they are in it for the long haul or just 
passing through.  It’s a long walk
from where they are now to wherever
it is they are going.

Alan Catlin
​
 Alan Catlin has been publishing for parts of five decades. His work derives from many interests from Art, music and literature  to the bars he lived and worked in.  His many full length books and chapbooks include the ekphrastic collection "Effects of Sunlight on Fog" from Bright Hill Press and, more recently from Future Cycle Press, "American Odyssey" largely derived from photos by Mary Ellen Mark and photos by photographers killed in Vietnam. Forthcoming is "Wild Beauty", also largely ekphrastic, from Future Cycle Press. His chapbook, "Blue Velvet" (poems inspired by movies) won the 2017 Slipstream Chapbook Award.