Monday, June 02, 2008

THE FALL

by Alan Catlin


Reading Camus
in pretrial jury

selection room/
court

the book about
a man with no

moral center
no values

changing his
story depending

upon the witnesses
this judge/penitent

unredeemable as
the guilty & the dead

our case: murder
one


Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, Thou Shalt Not Kill, an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. More than one year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.
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