Outlier
That cold cube of ice against a flurry of fire escape lips, naughty rap
rap knuckles so far beyond initial infraction, dead batteries for a dying
world; I am twisted nerve endings like internal ponytails on the pull,
and feelings don’t mean what tuk tuks mean, the data could not be
less clear; sciatica for the flimsy paper plate rapture –
Ostracism is a vast love of distance above all else,
corrugated rooftops catch distant rin tin tin rain, this retina detached
outlier behind weepy ronin pink eye sabbatical; unbroken briefcase
cyphers so file folders can stay on the lam –
you cannot touch me for I am unquarried stone on salamander prowl:
biting, glacial, indifferent as a mild pooling blah.
Strictures
And who among you would censure moth for flame,
spire from bell,
who among the narrow-numbs should be first to fasten the
restraints, limit passage, lob cannonballs of criticism?
Count my absence as a disavowal, you who manage rank with
truncheon-exact priggishness,
wall in that wretched wild Thunderbird of ideas;
from my wilting lamb’s lettuce,
hissing radiators of this balding Rapunzel tower –
listen to the plethora horns
in the swelling streets below:
all awe, all awe…
toot toot toot toot.
Market Man
No need for the maudlin insincere,
the man at market names his price
which is never the price if you know better,
the way he crosses his arms, closes himself off
and prepares for battle; the barter system is total exhaustion
if I am to be honest, my heart and head
and more generous foibles never really in it,
that absurd dizzying way bountiful hypochondriacs
imagine themselves afflicted with every ailment known to medicine
and a few the white coats may have not thought of,
and the way my last monies leave my hand hurts more
than any lover that has ever retired from once warm beds;
that wrecking ball shame of heavy feet, of being taken again.
The Daily Catch
On one of my many chuffed-lung walks,
past boxed-ribboned confectionery,
beyond mossy breaker wall protections,
the smell is what you notice before anything else;
those large industrial pails below various trawler net-tangles,
the daily catch on the death squirm,
saucer-eyed dilations unaware of the descaling knives just feet away,
the numerous yellow-smocked men with vicious nicotine faces,
ashing down over the creaking wood haunt of the salaried man,
unsavoury jokes exchanged in strange mother tongues as I nod half-friendly,
pull my collar up for the cold; shuffling by in a Salvation Army Peacoat to
the end of a rotting dock where the circling gulls squawk over the
dead and dying throwaways from this morning’s briny fog-soaked haul.
Voila & Other Silly Little Miracles
Humiliation, yes yes, there is plenty of that
& brackish homestead guile
& voila and other silly little miracles
so small you almost miss them,
trip over your own feet and blame the laces
of your premature birth,
even the eagles in the trees bald before too long,
squatting as much as nesting;
nature is everyone’s landlord, the bees and the birds
& chimney soot faces with glass golden briar hoppers for hands…
the zipper on my change purse suffering from inactivity,
Swan black Thomas Mann as clunky dialysis machine,
it’s calipers squeezing infant brain juice from apricot dayglow,
breakdowns along Bullshit Road –
mold in the hinges of the kitchen cupboard
now caught under nail;
what I have is mine so long as a man is willing to catalogue
his entire existence:
Roman nose, Irish liver, enough beard hairs
to invite a thousand men to the gallows.
Secrets Never Cease
Plucked treasure hunter eyes befall you,
secrets never cease:
the crimp, the golem, this patch-played foil derived
which should offer exits for a saving face,
whirling tango divots into lined gymnasium floor;
I’m the poster child for posters,
no eight ways around it…
procrastination should be an Olympic sport,
or at least a local watering hole with recycled beer
and creaky wind-chattered windows.
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.