The Bee Flats. They'd come up with the name in Paul's dingy basement flat, which always smelled dank and foisty no matter how many Glade Plug-ins Paul threw at it. Jacko always felt a little ill the day after he'd spent time at Paul's, the damp air permea...
“Excuse me. Is the bar still open?” I look up from cleaning to see an older male with an overly patched burlap messenger bag that has seen better days. I motion for the man to sit down at a table that doesn’t have its chairs upturned. “The bar is closed f...
Four hundred and twenty potatoes. A client asked me to take a picture of that on my Exacta 66 camera. I contemplated as I sipped my dirty martini. I do get a lot of absurd requests, but this takes the cake. Speaking of cake, let’s get baked. I forgot what...
Sipping dirty martinisWatching girls in bikinisAnd strumming on my Les PaulAlbert King ambles throughRiffs ‘I’ll Play the Blues for You’Man, I really got it allCHORUSIt’s a dream vacationNo place I’d rather beYeah, a dream vacationNot sure where I’m atBut...
As his band stepped onto the stage, Tyrone stole a moment to sip his dirty martini. He ran his tongue along his upper lip as he admired the glass, savoring the lingering taste of the alcohol. With a contented sigh, he got up and walked onto the stage. Dur...
Four twenty, Sunday afternoon Baking heat, it’s late in June Abandoned in sad clouds of dust Left by departing Greyhound bus Besieging desolation follows me This ghost town place of memories I’d broke off young, just seventeen For things I saw in magazi...
A penguin walks into a local little dive bar. The neon sign in the window didn't just flash “open” like most. She blinked as it flashed "Dirty Martini served here.” It was 4:20pm when she climbed up on the empty barstool and placed her most prized possess...
I lit the J between my lips and sucked its smoke deep into my fifty-year-old lungs. I held my breath and let it coat me inside. I sucked in more air to expand them further; to expose more tissue to the smoke. The deep recesses expand and then extract what...
His little black bookA mystery to mostOne could take a lookBut never figure out the host To understand his madness His scribblings and suchYou had to explore the brightnessHis mind often touched The entries were enigmasA code so well keptLike entry number...
A strange thing happened the other day. I'm not sure whether the time had anything to do with it because it was only four-twenty in the afternoon and the rush hour hadn't yet got under way. Anyway, as I unwrapped my Penguin bar I saw a man sitting on the...
Remember when we headlined at Alleycats, 420 East Street? Remember the heat, the buzz, the whole place packed to the rafters and reeking of liquor and cigarette smoke? Do you recall the spotlights cutting through the haze and the bone-shaking throb of the...
Black Birds Cold night air pinched at the darkness. Frost painted featherlike patterns on the windscreens of the parked cars along the street. Grass huddled together beneath their icing sugar coating. A neon light at the corner of the street failed to n...
The glow of the neon sign lit her face as she walked into the bar with a Gibson Les Paul guitar strapped across her back and carrying an urn in her hands. She set the urn in an empty stool and sat next to it, hanging the guitar on the back of hers. “Two d...
Dirty Martini 420 Competition • No entry fee• All entries must be new, original work• One entry per person• Limit 420 words• Category must be Micro Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry or Songs• Tags must include the word 'whatever'• Submission must include the...
I pulled the last olive off the swizzle stick with my teeth and ate it before finishing off my drink. Looking up at the clock it, showed 4:20. It was in the AM, not the afternoon. It had been a long day. “I couldn't even begin to count the number of peopl...
