Poetry: Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Sugar Rush

the piñata
breaks open
and all your past
lovers fall out

onto the heads
of screaming children
that were expecting
candy

instead of
this.

***

Love Disappears like a Stolen Car

Standing in the elevator

listening to 15 seconds of anti-Castro propaganda 

carry the groceries upstairs 

I notice the woman is laboured,

one in the oven

sweating long wet drops

on the floor 

and smiling

that’s what got her

into this predicament,

she probably shouldn’t 

smile anymore 

and her man 

is one of those skinny fat

offerings that spend their 

entire lives lost to sit ups 

and still have love 

handles. 

When I get off on my floor,

I know they will never get off

on one another.

Love disappears like a stolen car.

And the arguments through the walls

break plates that used to be

for dinner.

***

Evgeny the Loan Shark

is not very good at his job,

I think he just likes to say the word “juice,”

he knows very little English 

and forgets who owes him money 

so he goes around threatening both those

who have paid and those who have not

for failing to cover the “juice,”

I don’t even think he knows 

what the “juice” is,

he might think it’s the actual juice

you drink

which would explain why he is always 

sucking at that stupid grape drink box 

and tossing his straw in people’s

faces demanding the “juice”

in that thick car wreck of

an accent.

***

God May Be Dead, but Art is Not

Art is not dead.

Not fine art anyways.

Not by a longshot.

There are many purveyors 

of which I’m a fan:

Bonazzi, Karlsson, Johansson, Bell, Maj,

Rhodes, Moffatt, Marcel Herms…

I know this guy in France

that produces metal work sculptures 

that will blow your mind.

He has them drinking together 

as if you have just walked in on a 28th century

boozer.

There are good people doing good things,

you just don’t always hear about it.

But it’s all there

if you’re willing to dig 

a little.

I like to dig 

and see what I 

can find.

Get my hands dirty 

and blood flush 

and circulating 

and 

alive.

***

POMPEII

I collect all her hair clips  

and throw them into the air.

POMPEII!, 

I scream.

Then I pick them up 

and begin all over again:

POMPEIIIII!

A few slide under the couch

so that I have to move it to get all

her hair clips.

Then I put them back in the bathroom

and wait for her to get home.

She will ask me how writing went.

Only me and the good people 

of Pompeii will know.

Setu, August 2018