tim frank – 2 poems

A Visit to My Mother 

It was a strange day—
there were chariots bursting 
out of the sun
and meteors peppering the earth.
Some said it was 
Coke bottles 
blinking 
in rush hour traffic 
on suicide bridge. I don’t know.
I saw this creature 
with devils on both shoulders 
writhing in wasted graveyards.
Maybe it was a goth 
with cigarettes in both hands
crushed under a train. Could be.
At dawn there were robots
spilling their brains 
in the muck
though maybe 
they were just drones
controlled
by a housebound paraplegic
feeding breadcrumbs to the birds.
At tea that evening, my mum said,
“I’m Steven Spielberg today 
and my new film
speaks 
to the forgotten 
child 
inside our wounded adult.”
I told her, furiously,
“No!
And also,
you didn’t build Manhattan 
with a trowel, 
or scuba dive
in the Dead Sea
with unemployed Marxists.”
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m not—because that’s what you’re saying, right?
But let’s say that I am,
well, it’s all in the genes,
and that’s where madness grows.
So you,
yes you, dear boy,
will surely get the sickness, too.”
And with that her head exploded 
like a firework 
and her arms became thin strips 
of sizzling bacon. I think.
It was a strange day.


Bulimia Nights 

Setting fire to my bed
and the relics
of languid afternoons,
I iron the collar of my massive 
ego,
swamped with Bengal tigers
and cherry ice cream.
I purge junk food trapped in outer space,
not far from the deckchair floating 
on yellow waves.
Why can’t I reach into your eyes 
and pull out a Jack of clubs?
Why is there this fissure in my mind?
Even children understand there’s no logic 
to a fake tan
and a million-dollar golf swing.
Eat sushi with friends 
but make sure to floss with flowers of evil 
in the front yard
then stare at passers-by with their furrowed brows 
and alcoholic fits.
It’s my dream to drink a bottle of solitude 
and fall flat on my face 
in the House of Lords.
Here’s a story: 
there’s a slug crawling out of my ventilator shaft 
and this is what we call freedom
in the modern age.
Leave me alone but please 
plot my death on the dance floor 
with Dua Lipa
and her entourage.
All this wandering around will get me nowhere.
I learned nothing at school
and there’s not a single textbook that can 
teach the fundamentals 
of crackhead oblivion—
just raise a flag at half-mast 
when the cursor leaves town 
to tell its own story.
There’s a lost train on the horizon 
somehow following an unknown route
without tracks.
Listen closely and it’s clear 
someone will drown tonight.
My appetite for war
is building, 
rumbling like a tumble dryer
while the stock market sinks into an ancient marsh.
Banners sweep across fields 
demanding birth control pills and a cure for the latest crossword puzzle.
Politics is a fetish in my household 
it’s locked in the attic 
dressed in latex 
feeding off cat litter and cheap wine. 
Is it any wonder I’m tuning out
and turning on 
to the strange figures sleeping in my mirror?


TIM FRANK'S short stories have 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 called, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24)

Twitter: @TimFrankquill


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