UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
JOHNNY LONGFELLOW

The Ghost Whore’s Daddy Passes Through

Strung out
on crystal meth,
she haunts the alleyway—
her heels jus’ barely float above
the trash.

“How much?”
I ask, an’ off
we go into the dark,
to Kansas, Oklahoma, God
knows where.

Cool wind
stirs through my hair,
while cooler still, her tongue
stirs in my ear. Through drifts o’ fog
we drive. . .

Who loves
a girl who gives
all that she’s got to give,
an’ all for nothin’, but to hook
a ride?



“Frankie ‘n’ Johnny”
                                 “He was her man, but he done her wrong.”
                                                                                        Old Ballad

Frankie ‘n’ Johnny were nasty. O Lawdy, but how they would fight:
Foreplay to them was yellin’ an’ snortin’ an 8-ball each night.

Once Frankie went down the roadhouse, an’ while she was swillin’ her beer,
She snarled at Buddy the barkeep, “Has Johnny been drinkin’ in here?”

Well Buddy, he glared at ol’ Frankie. Said, “Woman, I’m tellin’ ya’ true:
Your Johnny went off with some hooker who wasn’t near skanky as you!”

So Frankie, she reached in her tank-top an’ fished for her .45,
‘Til Boof!—ol’ Buddy was eatin’ his words on the floor o’ that dive.

Then Frankie ran off to her shitbox, an’ shiftin’ that bitch into gear,
She reached for the case she ‘d stolen to crack herself open a beer.

Now, later that night at Johnny’s, po’ Frankie sat parkin’ ‘n’ cried
Outside o’ his rockin’ trailer where a woman was moanin’ inside.

O, the moonlight was faintly glowin’, an’ an owl was hootin’ above,
As Frankie, she fondled her pistol with a touch that was tender as love. . .

‘Til Vwoosh! she burst in that ten-wide, an’ rat-a-tat! Johnny was dead,
While “Aaaaagh!” his hussy was silenced with a bullet straight to the head.

Then Frankie, she looked in a mirror, an’ smiled there, lightin’ a smoke,
‘Cause Johnny, that sucker, ‘d left her an 8-ball o’ Mexican coke!

Now, this here ain’t got no moral. It’s jus’ an ol’ bitter song
‘Bout a psycho whose name was Frankie, an’ the bastard who done her wrong.


Johnny Longfellow lives in Massachusetts. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Soup,
Thieves Jargon, and--in collaboration with the artwork of Wayne McConnologue--in
Thunder Sandwich.







© 2008 Underground Voices