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We want work that is alive. This is a venue for serious writers frustrated with the tastes of the academic literary establishment.
Poetry

Laundromat

Written by Dan Frankenfield

 

At the laundromat
Marlon loads his clothes
and keeps talking
until a teenage kid
makes Marlon stop talking,
makes Marlon give him money
until the kid takes off.

"just don't trust him
can't trust him
just bought a new guitar
a two hundred dollar guitar
now he's got three guitars
can't pay bills
can't play guitar neither"

Marlon balls up his shirts
all gigantic, all piled up.
He gets to a pink Nylon coat
with yello and purple stripes
and tries it on
but it's too small
and gets balled with the rest.

"just don't trust him
can't trust him
can't trust her neither
she took my quarters
right off my desk
right into her pocket book
her them all clankin"

When that pile is finished
there's another on the floor
and another after that
"yep
one of these days
I'm gonna go
he don't care, she don't care
and i don't care much neither" 

Published in Poetry
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Halloween

Written by Dan Frankenfield

 

At the
costume party
I sit next
to a girl
dressed
in leggings
and heels.

"What are you
tonight," I ask.

"A slut," she says.
Then she laughs.

She tells me
a story
of the time
a guy came
on her face
and she got
an eye infection.

"Jesus."

"Yeah," she says.

"My eye was
all red and squinted
for like three days."

"Did you go to a doctor?"

"No," she says.

"I called my mom,
told her it was an
accident.
And it was.
He didn't mean to.
It just
happens."

She pauses.
She has a
nice smile
nice hair
nice face.

"I mean
it's not like
i'm a slut
or anything."


 

Published in Poetry
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