Cake Jumping Out of Strippers is Just Vomiting
Those scoundrel thoughts
peppered my head again.
Cake jumping out of strippers
is just vomiting.
Dewlaps of the great Northern moose
mounted on pristine mother of pearl
walls.
That dry mouth snore
billowing out beside me.
Choking itself back into
momentary wakefulness.
Then lost to the world again.
It was hard to care about things
or have things care about you.
A sudden slice of zip ties
through everything.
That metallic taste
of drill bits in my mouth.
I looked at the clock.
It said 1am.
6:30 would come fast enough.
And I would be in bed
with the other one.
Trading Barbs
He could tell
after the very first drink
that she was not right for him,
nudging his friend on the shoulder
many times, trying to trade Barbs,
but his friend seemed happy
with the way things were
and so did the other Barb
(lipstick laughing many times)
so that he was stuck right
where he was which was kind of
how it had always been
since the fire brought
the flood.
When the Guns Fell Silent
Someone asked him to put
on
a shirt with sleeves,
said such obvious displays
were not fit for the occasion
and as soon as he threw that
button-down on,
the guns fell silent;
he could flex those
beautiful biceps through the fabric,
but the fanfare just wasn't
the same.
All that pricey ink the
tattoo place swore was Art.
Even the obscenely drunk
suddenly
remembering their balance.
All the bridesmaids with
pinkish fuck me shoulders
turned back to
ceremony.
The food having to pay for
the drinks
which got saddled with the
cost of the flowers
that had to vouch for the
cake.
There wasn't a better grift
out there than a wedding.
All he wanted to do was lose
his shirt.
Making the Train
He looked down at his watch and
started a light jog.
He had to make the train.
Into the city with the rest of the
business crowd.
A cold rain started just as he entered
the station.
Dropping his token in the machine
and rushing through the turnstile with
all the other suits.
He could hear the train coming into
the station.
Ran down the stairs and found himself
on a packed platform.
The rush hour train into the city was
always a mess.
Packed in like sardines, standing room
only.
A woman with a small dog in a white
trundle buggy.
The army of suits checking their
watches.
The doors closed over as the train
made its way
into the tunnel.
He had made the train.
A wash of relief came over him.
Suddenly shouting out a quick prayer
to his god.
Before pushing a button
and blowing himself
up.
Sacred Cows Make the Best Cheeseburgers
It was a useless time, just like all
the rest.
People looked for someone to follow
because they didn’t believe in
themselves.
The air stunk
and all the opinions too.
I could feel the napalm over all my
skin.
A burning so deep and relentless.
Screaming out into the night
like some reverse rooster
when I couldn’t take it anymore.
In a cracking voice without much
power.
But I had to let it out, screaming
feebly:
SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST CHEESEBURGERS!
SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST
CHEESEBURGERS!
The dumpster I was yelling at did not
move.
A fat lip of folded cardboard hanging
out over the top.
I didn’t feel better and I didn’t feel
worse.
It was just something that
had to be done.
Like popping some runaway zit
that would never end up on the back
of a sour milk carton.
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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