The Gorko Gazette

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10.4.2025 7:03 AM

The Catalogue of Ships and 1 more by Damon Hubbs

The Catalogue of Ships

Once John stole from Henry
a young woman named Anne,
we added to the epic every night.
Sing, Goddess. The food at Academy Hall is shit.
I eat pudding by the foot. You talk about joining
a feminist housing collective in London. Nick intones
A Paradelle for Susan. The moon is slender-
ankled but we don’t get the joke.

Obsessed with Ipswich, Me + You (and Updike).
Upon a down bed murderously adulterous.
You dressed like Joan of Arc that Halloween,
shoplifted fire, went on bravely fearing nothing
in God’s name. I saw Levana too. I knew her Roman symbols.
I scaled the clouds drinking at the Choate Bridge Pub,
lost my wallet, phone, returned with a corpse in tow
—a hero’s welcome.

The USS Constitution. Boston’s iron lung —and local
color too. Saved from scrapping after the defeat of Guerriere.
Gun range: 1,200 yards. “Hell,” said Anne,
“take your hand off my knee.” I have no mastery
over the material but I think it’s Book 2:
The Catalogue of Ships. I want a lemon peel in my martini.
Sing, Goddess. What’s your karaoke song?
I’m lisping. It’s more than a feeling. No, no, I am no Greek.

The kingfisher in the women’s loo is something.
That beak, canonical. The event took place towards
the end of the semester. Nine days of plague (maybe Mono…)
… still fucking despite the quarantine on every incoming ship.
And harnessing the energies of crisis
we stole the tip jar at Kimball Tavern, called ourselves the sons
of liberty, rode the green dragon west to Union street.
Speak, memory. But it’s all too long ago to make sense.

Peacocks

When you tell me Alain Delon
is in hell, my mouth
is like a policeman
with a throbbing typewriter.
Crane’s Beach is closed
because there’s too much shit
in the water.
Last week I dreamt
I bought a Ducati
and named your pussy Kate Bush.
Lately I’ve been writing poems
with specific dates and Proper Nouns.
I like an ostentation of peacocks
better than
a pitying of doves.
The precinct is as blue as a bicycle pump.
Sometimes your voice is my favorite new song.
Other times it’s like playing tennis
with a small hammer.

About the artist

Damon Hubbs is the poetry editor at Blood+Honey and The Argyle Magazine. He’s the author of the full-length collection Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include The Literary Underground, Synchronized Chaos, Horror Sleaze Trash, Hobart, Utriculi, & others. His next book, Bullet Pudding, is forthcoming from Roadside Press in 2026.