Ryan Quinn Flanagan | Six Poems

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

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.