Poetry: Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Walking Your Dog on the Moon

Our grandparents were fed on the presidential pablum

of Eisenhower.  Freedom was a war that had been won

before it was a t-shirt.  And then jobs were scarce

because of the commies.  No one knew how it worked,

only that it did.  And to question the system was to walk

your dog on the moon.  To fumble for pocket change

and think of the Green Bay Packers.  Lombardi

and the ice bowl.  And then our parents

were given everything so that they thought that

was how it always was.  They couldn’t go back.

Sticking flowers down the muzzles of guns

and believing them flowers.  So that when we

came along, we were a mistake.  The father could

have been anyone.  And left to pick up the pieces,

we found heroin.  And everything went away

just like it does in the movies.

Jane Error

The missus cannot see what all the hype is about.

She tells me her goldfish could write better than this

and he died four years ago.

She holds the book up at some distance

and wiggles it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger

scrunching up her nose

like someone holding a bag of garbage.

I told you

you wouldn’t like it,

I say

rolling over and readjusting

my pillow,

the Victorians read like thermal underwear

at a wine tasting.

Everything threatening to break out

but it never does.

                             

And she tries again.

Like someone in disbelief.

Laying in bed

flipping through the pages

of Jane Eyre

like it’s a race to the finish.

Like disappointing sex

no one should ever have

to endure.

An Evening with Suspenders

the bridge over the water was not a bridge at all

and the water seemed to know it

and the fish in that water

some unseen Sinatra bird breaking into song

colouring whole scenes with broken crayons

my gastric juices storyboarded out of existence

whisked away like shiny billionaire love

the mannequins of storefront windows giving the

silent treatment

clouds of exhaust shooting out of obscenely large metal automobile rectums

the fornication of squirrels in public parks

coughing pesticide children doing death camp somersaults into adulthood

the movie houses full of butter-stuck popcorn kissing

a thriving lice co-operative in the seat fabric

drinking blood in the same slick manner the church uses wine:

a prop to center the theatrics, give us a show!

the trench coat exhibitionist giving back to the community

big business won’t fit in my icebox, what a shame;

hollowing out avocados with a soup spoon

the travelling lobotomist escapes

prosecution.

Claws In

greetings

so good to see you

a mountain lion walking through the wall

spree shooter unannounced

growling three times

then jumping out the window,

and there are no drugs to speak of

I quit all that business

long ago

          

but if you come back

let us wrestle for a while,

all I ask is that you keep your claws in

in the name of

fairness

and I will never speak of you

and you will never speak

of me

and there

will only be this poem

for them to know about

all we shared.

The Day a Tiger Escaped from the Elmvale Zoo

we were sitting in the high school cafeteria

skipping class, but never leaving school somehow

the girls flipping through popular magazines

over questionable fries

when word started to spread through

the popular kids on down through the middlers

on down to us and the skids

about how a tiger had escaped from the Elmvale Zoo

and was thought to be somewhere in the woods

outside Barrie and how I suggested we go find

the tiger in the woods and the apparent lack

of enthusiasm which I had not expected

and how one of my friends had a car so I

made my case to him first and when that failed

I tried the girl he liked because he would do anything

to impress her, but she couldn’t care less…

Isn’t that dangerous?

one of the other girls said.

FINE, I slammed my hands down

on the table,

IF ALL OF YOU ARE TOO SCARED TO DO IT,

I WILL!

Then I got up and walked out of the cafeteria.

And went home to bed because I

was tired.

Setu, December 2018