Earmarked

It starts like nothing else does –
with a simple marker: felt-tipped,
Harlem black, that liquorice smell that is supposed
to warn of something toxic to the human
survivals; a simple line drawn down the earlobe
so that something has been earmarked
for something else, set aside like an antique lamp
for resale; that craven Velcro way you run from
the schoolyard bully, his brutish uncapped marker
on the rampage.

Isaac Newton Reinvents the Charcuterie in His Own Cold Meaty Likeness

Such a cinch to move,
all those electricals sent down
from the fuse box,
Isaac Newton reinvents the charcuterie
in his own cold meaty likeness if I didn’t know better,
unplanned sit-ups in the dark; the court jester before
the castle, it is the laughers reverse engineered
by able tear duct sheddings, humanzees in the mezzanine
drumming up interest –
where you end up is the sum of floppy meanderings,
painted streetwalkers lining easy street,
vacuums to fill in the dusty ballast-less drooping;
this sky bridge of Damocles hammocks on the slow dangle,
tiki bar umbrellas chasing off the rains
in miniature.

Every Band Needs a Train Song

Every band needs a train song
before everything goes off the rails
as I stand over this sink that has seen better days,
look away for a moment and when my eyes return,
the sink is gone. I look away again without a thought
and when I look back the sink has returned.
I finish brushing, spit and rinse before turning
out the light. If such things still phase you,
you are groping minnows on someone else’s
dirty water. Jack-knifing with gassy trucks on the
diesel plan. A hint of darkness and I am gone.
Back down into the tumbling catacombs of my
vaulted lint-trap mind.

I wonder

if Greta
was ever Garbo’s
real name

or if she knew
the dyslexics would
would read it
and see her as Great
before anyone else

so that word of mouth
got around

from all the bigs
to the smalls

like the nefarious gum lines
of some New York travel agent

who wonders why she never
left the streets of New York
once she got there

falling in love with a city
and never a man.

Kain Crescent Park

A slim meander off Robertson
to that pavement-painted blue arrow,
then four steps up, count them as you go:
one, two, three, four…
and now you are in Kain Crescent Park
looking across the flats to some picnic table
by wood’s edge, on the lean and so well forested
that ravenous mosquitoes eat better than you;
yes, those buzzing little blood-devils,
in front of a large uncut stone like the one
Jackson Pollock can’t help but lie under.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Ink Pantry, Impspired Magazine, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review. 

You can find more of Ryan’s work here on Ink Pantry.