Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Accumulation is Sweeping the Nation
She doesn’t have to pay any rent so she
wastes money elsewhere. Has three shit boxes in the driveway,
only one of them actually starts.
She thinks of them as status symbols
instead of shit boxes in much the same way
a hoarder is wealthy because they have collected
seven rooms of floor-to-ceiling magazines.
But this one, the mouth on her; she’s a real treat:
has a Nile monitor, three dogs, a python, two birds, one cat,
and many goldfish…more symbols of her perceived wealth,
no doubt. Never putting out any garbage. Making $15/hr…a true giant of
finance. Her boyfriends all low functioning and on parole
and cheating on her with other girls that only have one car
and no pythons. She can’t understand it.
They probably throw out their garbage
as well.
Love is a Motherfucker
I spill my beer
on his kitchen floor
on New Year’s Eve
Nerve damage.
An old work injury
from years of menial
labour.
In the next room
his coke dealer lays out a few lines
on a cd case.
Running back into the kitchen
he tells me he loves this woman
my wife works with
on a sex line.
I tell him she entertains
many strange men
one after the
other.
Much unprotected sex.
That syphilis
can be common as
hiccups.
But still
he is not deterred.
This is love,
he is certain.
I give him her beeper
and he leaves
a message.
Global Warming
The vomit was yellow and chunky
and drying
at the foot of a mailbox
and I thought of global warming,
how vomit could not stay wet anymore
and all the blood too, that metallic smell,
the darkened colour it becomes when it coagulates
and the piss of course,
don’t forget the many piss trails
of the city
that are also dry and yellow
but not at all chunky like
the vomit.
Science is fun.
Not the science of highschool science class
but rather the science of myself:
bending over to fart,
trying to send a butterfly
to the moon.
Our Man in Europe
The house is gutted, the fish too,
both house and fish gutted as we all are
our innards strewn over the grass line
left for the flies –
and our man in Europe pulls his hair out
over the markets
THE MARKETS!,
THE BLOODY MARKETS!,
he screams
the rollercoaster of the markets
that mean less than buzzing dung piles
down 136 points in sweaty sporting team absentia
the man or woman in bed beside you
kissing the hangman’s ample neckline
more bad sex than bad driving
folding chairs and folding people
everyone giving it up, going through the motions
it’s deplorable really, the whole shebang…
leaky faucets and leaking bladders
the drywall and the insulation pulled out of the walls
until there is nothing left
not even the heart
everything disembowelled
eviscerated
devastated
shattered
reeling.
Try to Explain Girl on Girl Porn to the Mother
of Your Child
Say popular things
and you will have
many friends.
Say unpopular things
and it gets guilty show trial lonely
very fast.
The boo birds out in numbers.
Try to explain girl on girl porn to the
mother of your child.
Like sitting up in bed
trying to give yourself
head.
No one likes the truth.
Yours
or anyone
else’s.
Why do you think
there are so many lawyers
in the world?
Someone
to explain away
your many shortcomings
when you cannot.
Steeeeeee-rike
A child outside
cries because he has struck out
again.
His father tells him to stop swinging like a girl
while his mother and a few of her drunk friends
sit on the back deck cackling,
booing each time the child
strikes out.
And he hasn’t hit one yet.
It’s been this way for hours.
You think they’d throw the kid a bone
now and then
but what do I know?
I guess he’ll be used to striking out
when he’s older:
with women
with jobs
with expectations,
like all the
rest.
