It was a knowing. A Gnostic phenomenon. I had seen the place before, a place that stood quietly at the edges of a town. It was the type of place one intended to visit, but intentions are not actualities. There were around it wheat fields to one side, and large quiet looms on the other. […]
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Dexter Dalrymple had no idea why anyone would want to interview him. Who would care at this point what he’d have to say. Maybe his family and a few old friends, in deference to his age and wealth, hoping to find themselves in his will some day soon. But he had agreed to this interview […]
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1. I don’t want to be begged. I am turned on by a steady affection, an unwavering rationality. I want you to do my taxes please memorize my social security number darling. 2. Be careful be careful be careful I am sharp in unexpected places I will remember your mother’s name and kiss your earlobe […]
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I. My arms stretch to the heavens pre-destination lengthy torso stunted by chicken legs The nurse begged me stand tall; wall and back kissing; head and neck reconnecting inward like best-friend secrets. “Five and three quarters” It takes women in my family incessant earth-moon rotations for them to fall down permanently in love with the […]
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conversely she was my saturday night my bathroom stall drug the cigarettes butts on my back porch. you are my sunday morning my lipstick stained coffee mug bleary-eyed kisses that taste like toothpaste left, right, you left again. i lost all desire to be your/china/doll your sixAM/hotelroom/smoke little bitch, don’t call me ring/voicemail/ring/hangup rinse, repeat. effloresce i am full […]
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Home. Come home my love to gentle rains, where fire hearts breathe you in. walk among the feathered pines with me at your side. Be blessed by love’s tender touch swim with lost memories of days swiftly flown and scattered upon the breeze. We miss the sanctified song of your soul exalted among mere mortals. […]
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Majid from your wine-stained lips meem alif jiim daal م-ا-ج-د you print the letters on my palm and close my fist around the syllables. ت-ح-ب-ن-ش you love me like the Prophet –salaam– loved Fatima –beloved– and I love you as a brother. ت-ض-ح-ك you laugh. be my wife. و-ق-ف habibi, I […]
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Maribel used to be a disco dancer, studio 54-ing it up on a Monday night. Today she stirs a Donna Summer song into a boiling pot on the stove. And a heart breaks every day she doesn’t dance. The swirling sweet potatoes remind her of herself. She imagines for a minute what her life could’ve […]
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Futile Morbidity I imagine my funeral to have a punch bowl of regrets and scarcity of people the place would be drab, not much different than my own life my mother would burst into tears every second or so and my sister would be handing out tissues that would end up unused I hope the […]
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california did you forget scratching off your skin on the floor of your parents’ shower, home from a chilly vacation with a warm girl? a text at three am: “I’ve peeled all my skin off do you still love me? can you still love a mess of bloody muscle, viscous trails, teeth, teeth, teeth?? things […]
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I’ll be at a party, clutching a plastic cup of something that probably doesn’t deserve to be called beer and making the motions of small talk but actually just shouting to be heard over the loud music. A tall econ major and I will be talking about something utterly banal, maybe an observation about the […]
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Out of ant hill, rolling over itself in unison with the white grains of sand was a green caterpillar. I’ve seen the desperate search for a home before. Reflecting off its eyes and down its cheeks hoping its tears will dampen the sand enough for a child to build him a castle. Only to have […]
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Salesclerk i feel like i am fading away everything irritates me the sound of my space bar at 2 am is my worst enemy right now and the fact that this isn’t a poem but i’m still making it look like one is making me sick to my fucking stomach i just drank a can […]
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Hey all. Thanks to everyone who has submitted so far to our winter issue. We are accepting fiction, nonfiction, and poetry until 11/1 at midnight. Note: Be sure to review the submissions guidelines before submitting. If these guidelines are not followed, your submission will not be reviewed. R
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Hey all, Vagabond City Literary Journal is re-opening for submissions. My name is Rachel Charlene Lewis and I have been granted Vagabond City by Joe, who unfortunately stepped down as Editor-in-Chief due to commitments. To get to know me, please view the staff page. To let me get to know you, please submit your writing. […]
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It was a sunny day, the kind that always reminded Joe of childhood. He’d been thinking about his younger days quite a bit since his mother died. She’d been his last direct connection to that fading part of his life. He would never be sure again if his memories of that time were accurate, now […]
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It was a warm, Friday afternoon and my frat brother from Orlando was staying in the new dorms at Temple during his internship. His name was Mark: A tall, slender brown skinned Jamaican originally from North Jersey but now doing time in the Sunshine state. I had promised to hang out with him and it […]
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There was an awful stink in Jerry Dairy’s trailer. A stink like something died. Actually, Mary Dairy said that a dead thing in the trailer was entirely possible. She said that Sid the vicious guinea pig had disappeared a week ago and that now he was probably decomposing under the furniture somewhere. We emptied a can of […]
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French Manicure She thought about getting a new sprinkler for the freshly mowed lawn. He had worked on it for an hour, sweating. He was sweating now while her pondering moved to the kitchen, where she would have him fix the dripping tap.
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At a party recently I saw Kierkegaard lounging in the curve of a sensuous chair and in a corner Kant leaning against a dark wall covering scrolling his big fat finger at a Wittgenstein arms akimbo threatening in his silent way stoic Hopper in green beads, red leather mulling small actions for Derrida’s roundness deconstructed […]
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The boys drank in one room. The girls in another. Always the same, no matter the letters. Greek Letters. Shabby sofa on the burnt-out lawn.
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VAGABOND CITY 