Five Wonderful Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Give Them Hell

 

The pope came out and said there is no such thing as Hell,

but that just sounds like some shaky old man on his last legs

trying to reassure himself;

I wonder how the collection plate will be affected,

fear is a great motivator;

Dante’s Hell was so imaginative,

he put the pope down in Hell, of course,

but now the pope says there is no Hell –

either way, the whole world will not fit in a hand-basket.

 

Lava Lamp

 

Bunched up

in the top of a lava lamp

like brain matter

on holiday,

I finally know

what you mean

when you say:

“shortness of breath.”

 

Old snakeskin boots

by the door

that used to rattle.

 

Asthma is a shortcut to sympathy,

stolen box cutters in the

windless Badlands.

 

The sun reaching down

into pockets

pulling up twines of

golden lint.

 

Happen Stance

 

It just happened.

My feet were far apart on an odd angle.

In that parking lot largely devoid of cars.

Just me and dried bird shit.

And this newest stance felt comfortable,

so I just stood there in that position.

My upper body doing what it wanted while

my lower body did its thing.

Not wanting to move because I worried

I would never be able to get this position back.

I may be able to get it close from memory,

but I would know it was not the same.

Lose the feel I had just come to know.

In that parking lot of painted yellow lines.

Across from the community housing

with old bedsheets over all the windows.

 

Sick Day

 

The day threw up in my lap

and I could tell it was a sick day,

the sky had grown ill and grey,

simple paperweights unable to

hold anything down,

the streets congested

and much of the underground too;

a sick day from the croupy dehydrated depths,

I would not be going in to work

which is why my weak unsteadied hand

picked up the phone

and my clammy fingers dialled;

waiting for that voice on the other end

that would not stop coughing

because it was a very sick day:

the sheets and pillows and blankets

of my bed waiting for me.

 

Tornado Man

 

Tornado man comes out of nowhere.

Rips through the entire pantry. 

 

Leaves unmade beds behind.

A long fight with the insurance people.

 

The roof over your head taken off.

Slammed down into a field three townships away.

 

That car thirteen payments away from ownership now a total wreck.

Expired warranties far as the eye can blind.

 

And the city calls in the army who doesn’t call anybody.

Securing the financial center before anything else.

 

Commemorative coins and high winds.

Stone drives removed of all their gravel.

 

Without power for the next three weeks.

Under a boil water advisory from the city.

 

Crying down into the folds of calloused hands.

That taste of salt in the mouth after so long

away from the heaving mad sea.

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, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.