Saggy Taints & Hourly Saints
A sudden spark –
from a flint wheel
lighter
perhaps.
A firing squad of
possibilities.
This sprawling bramble bush
way
I seem to lose everything.
Stepping out into the
insolvent gumshoe avenues.
Looking to be solved in 20
questions or less.
The falling rain above my
head
like an umbrella by other
means.
Missing letters from the
faltering peep-dangled
theatre marquee.
The sewers backed up like
cornered raccoons
becoming suddenly vicious.
Someone asking for change
that is not some pampered
glory hole
optimist from one of the
academies.
That single outstretched
hand
of peeling Styrofoam.
Some matted last leg hip
dysplasia dog
that doesn't even get up
anymore
to welcome the passing
crowds.
The eyes glassed over
like one of those
stained-glass churches
you find on every corner.
Full of believers and full
of themselves.
Saggy taints & hourly
saints.
An unregistered piece under
the bed.
With the serial numbers
filed off.
Waiting to be called upon.
In a brown paper bag so
crinkled
that demolition sites
replace
a solid night's sleep.
The Swede & the Sun
He
should not be living alone!
My nurse wife is always worried
he will fall.
Garbo
lived alone,
I say.
Maybe
it is a Swedish thing.
I
think his wife died last year,
my wife says.
He’s
probably just waiting now.
Unsteady down the drive,
gathering the garbage can to bring
back inside.
Walking over his lawn with the aid of
a cane
because he can no longer work the
front stoop.
Then back down into his chair,
sitting with eyes closed for hours.
This Swede, easily in his late
eighties.
Turned to face the sun.
The meals on wheels ladies driving up
every few days.
To deliver a warm meal
and make sure he is not dead.
This man of Scandinavia
who seems to believe the sun
has always escaped him.
This long last sun he watches set.
Enjoying each like it will be his
last.
Everything
is moments
in time
that half-
adamant
way
you pick at
the face
the universe
has given
you.
Everyone Gets Gas
My only gas station gig,
the boss was a total asshole.
Made me change tires
as people filled up and drove off.
Blaming me
for not being attentive
to the customer.
I told him I thought they got
exactly what they came for;
not wanting my attentiveness,
just the gas.
He threatened to take it out of my
cheque,
but I was making so little it wouldn’t
even
cover the first two culprits.
He fired me
and I thanked him,
I remember that.
I was so tired of the graveyard.
Of getting kicked around like some
crushed soda can you’d find
in the street.
My next gig was telemarketing.
Cold calling, trying to sell freezer
orders
of beef for $5.85/hr.
From the second floor off this
non-descript
building along Dunlop Street.
You’d never know it was there.
Which is just the way I felt about
myself
at that time.
Living in my aunt and uncle’s
basement.
With the many jars of preserves.
Korean Karaoke
I am the only white face,
but that should not matter
and I do not sing because there
is no voice,
the swollen tongue cut out a long time
ago
by Father Silence
and his various unsterile
implements
a cotton mouth
sharing the name with a snake
from some frightening book of my youth
and it is nice to see the kids up
there
cutting loose
very few stand alones,
but since when did we ask
for monuments
instead of
people?
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.
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