casino town open-mic poetry

every tuesday night is casino*town poetry night at the franklin house. we get started around 7pm. musical accompaniment ends at 10pm, but the words will keep coming until we pass out... all of our events are free, but we do love donations to help keep the house running.



life left a methodone clinic in your pocket

i sat across from you, sensing something was different.
you explain how life has abandoned you
left a methadone clinic in your pocket
and a hand to spare change for the beer you clasp.
moments go by in a silence filled with thoughts--
me thinking about the stories your scars would tell.
you thinking about the chance of a fuck,
but more of ending your three days of sobriety.
three months, you say, have gone by without poetry.
of taking an unwanted break
a break from being able to comprehend
a break from feeling everything...
of not enough.
The man with the jack nicholson voice
sat across from me
trying to remember why he was born angelic
and still clutching his forty of pabst.
only temporarily visiting life, before the 15 comes along.
because he has to keep his schedule.
i left him.
i left him digging through his pockets
desperately trying to find a pen or paper
or change for another forty.
but the only thing he found
was that damn methadone clinic.
giving him recollection, not redemption.

--angela franklin (portland 2002)

Travis Howe, here June 12th! Followed by open discussion.

Travis Howe, singer and guitarist of such midwest legends as Disasternaut and more recently, the progressive metal band
Ash & Ember, will be playing his hallucinatory mix of improv guitar and chanting, evoking desert journeys in July with a cheap car and expensive drugs.














The whole thing starts around 7:00 pm and we are asking for $5 donation, but if you do not have that, still come on out. Keep in mind the cost of gas for these fellows and the cost of keeping the franklin house alive.

James Munoz of the Bled was penciled in to play this night but had to cancel. Sorry. I know we here at the franklin house would have loved to have had some time to hang out with James, as whe is an old friend, but sometimes that kind of thing just doesn't work out.

re-lived lucidity

Absynthe, 1st commercialized in early 1800s emerged as a powerful icon of freedom during ______ peroid and it was during this time that the highly perfumed spirit reached unparelleled popularity and cult status among the worlds of art and literature. Once proclaimed to fuel the fires of creaticity and subsequently demonized, Absynthe has re-emerged as a high quality, fine alcoholic liberation recalling those earlier artistic times.

I see the empty bottle of absynthe with the slanted cat eyes printed across the surface of the bottle resting next to my computer and sem empty glasses and soaked cig buts on the table in the garage/studio amidst the bright monster paintings of demon faces, snarling woman with skeleton teeth, graffiti skulls, and holies. I think about 2 nights ago...so many naked bodies with hellish screams, droning instruments, purging of fear and shame, my incantations till my throat was dry and then more incantations and...sparklers forced up urethras...when it all came true...flowers of evil flourishing to something more holy...bliss was not just possible but certain...when we all tapped into the human perpetual motion machine.
There is this much ________ left floating in a cup w/ a bit of black stuff floating on top. I don't even mull it over. I take the last sip, remember, live again. The syrup soaks my throat for a little while. One must always be drunk, if just for a bit.

a message from Mic

This message came to us from Mic Boshan of the CJ Boyd Sexxxtet, after being with us last week:

"My experience at the Franklin house was blissful and life changing. It’s been on the tip of my tongue since it found me. I can scarcely help myself from bringing it up in every sincere conversation I've been graced with since then. I cannot adequately express how profound the experience was for me... But, I will say that it was freeing and inspiring. It reminded me of why I choose to go on living."

-Mic

Thanks for being part of this with us Mic!