Author of the Month: Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

I Am the Press Corps

I am the press corps 

I do all the pressing, the reporting,

ask the questions never asked. 

At this computer,

night after night.

I am the press corps,

trying for the high score,

the money shot.

Itching the scalp of Rodin’s Thinker.

A fresh snow of dandruff by these waiting 

gumshoe feet.

***

You’re Not An Actor, Just Another Waiter with Headshots

When you sit around counting sycophants 

on your one good hand, and the drinks that come 

are watered down, bumping sharks instead of uglies –

two forks caught together like warring buffalo 

from the plains right to your plate;

“you’re not an actor, just another waiter with headshots,”

and now haughty-go-lightly won’t bring a single thing

to the table; his truth meant to be snide and mine 

more truthfully hurtful so that we seem to have reached

some kind of understanding about the very public 

impossibility of one another; my date eyeing the exits 

like sizing up other men on the fly.

***

Barium Swallow

The esophagus thought it had gone into hiding,

pulled one over on a duvet of waiting comforters,

but the nurse came in with a tiny cup

then joined the doctor behind the x-ray machine,

trying to get a good look at the interiors,

while I stood and listened to that strange clicking 

noise that makes you think the spooks are 

tapping your telephone again; trying to get a listen 

at the interiors in their own little way

so that I decided to say nothing, not even when some

duster with motor oil for breath asked me for directions

on the long walk home.

***

Those Many Mean Girl Tornadoes of Disaster Relief

You can take the nitrate 

out of grade eleven science class,

but you can’t take the science 

out of things that explode,

even tempers like ship flares shot off

into the sudden sinking mayday night;

the stars on the move like late model 

cars sitting at lights,

the roof down like pre-empting 

those many mean girl tornadoes 

of disaster relief;

that way you sit up in bed

short of breath 

surrounded by the landlord’s many shortcuts 

that may as well be bodies

in a graveyard of bacon fat stillness  

and tax deductible hours

you never get back.

***

Epoxy

Never mind the polymers, this stringent 

resin epoxy, that way bad luck can become 

an adhesive for some, gum-stuck and cursing 

the bustling sidewalk world –

when’s the next job fair, no one wants to know,

there is never enough money for everything anyways;

leaning against walls wondering about the human spine,

an old coil of snakeskin they fashion into boots

so fine they pay bums to eat off them

for money (there’s that silly green thing again

like an iguana switching hands)

and the radio needs tuning

and the lovers in bed all spooning…

even the inside man out of the job.

***

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Setu, February 2022