Six Poems
by Tim Frank
Deathly Makeup
Dry your eyes, mate
It’s not so bad,
Think;
There’s a late-night theatre
Of rotten dirt
Waiting
Just for you,
A place where flesh and tears
Are just another stain.
Vote For Me
Don’t I look good
In my puffy lemon necktie
And my matching MAGA
Polyester tracksuit?
Don’t I look good
When the lights are low
And my nipples shine
Like LEDs?
The Dog
The dog is strange,
The dog is special.
He can recite the words to Taxi Driver and shoot a sawed-off shotgun.
He knows his leash is just a construct, an illusion of the mind.
One day he will soar among the stars, where worlds collide like glitter balls.
Odds
Odds are
I’ll build a fire
On Main Street
And shoot it full of holes
Odds are
I’ll walk
The Great Wall of China
And jump off
The eastern end
Odds are
I’ll curl up
In the Dead Sea
And dissolve
Into heaps of sand
Odds are
I’ll dangle
From the Sphinx
And eat
My body whole
Odds are
I’ll sing along
With floating drones
And serenade
The earth
Stripped
I grew up
In a family line of nudists,
Except my nana
Who was a fully-clothed
Heroin addict.
Smoker’s Cough
I have a smoker’s cough
And I splutter
Over oceans,
Soaking forests,
Swamping clouds.
But with every weary breath
I find myself
Hemmed in
Like dreams behind a door
Which unlocks
When the coughing stops
Then I take another drag.
BIO: Tim Frank’s work has been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Metaworker and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook is An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24) and his second chapbook of poetry is Delusions To Live By (Alien Buddha Press, ’25).