Five Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

Poem for a Man Who Can’t Stop Attending Funerals

 

Youth is a privilege no one seems to understand

until it is too late or already happened and here comes

this gimpy army of white hairs working his way up the back nine,

so that I stop off for some pocket change lunch with

fizzy fountain soda and sit down to write this poem

for a man who can’t stop attending funerals;

all his friends dead or dying, now the young have joined in,

overdoses. Standing behind those dark aviator sunglasses,

hands folded expressionless as the family sobs out another

chicken scratch tribute, and later a few drinks alone

trying to remember all the faces and voices he has forgotten

like the simple rust of old fire escapes that are always coming down.

South Chennai, 1997

 

Correspondent’s Brief

 

The mascot has changed names.

Still serving spirits from the grand beyond.

 

The journo ranks have thinned out

to a few mangy dogs.

 

See you in the bar Thursday!

Otto has all the best gossip

and no one to believe it.

 

Personally, I prefer Madras.

But you can’t skin a cobra

with a butter knife

as they say in the administrative ranks.

 

Caste system still in effect.

The dailies are drinking straight

from the bottle now.

 

Pumpkin Spice Gangsters

 

On a long enough timeline,

everyone is exposed.

 

And for some, such humilities are immediate.

Even if not suddenly realized.

 

And I pull into the corner convenience

with the burnt out sign

and some burnout surfer type

manning the cash.

 

Jump out of my car

and walk up to this group of

pumpkin spice gangsters.

 

Blocking the doorway

and blowing vape smoke

everywhere.

 

Puffing their hairless chests out

like Thanksgiving turkeys.

 

I catch a whiff of the pumpkin spice.

Is it October already?

 

The pumpkin spice gangster closest

the overturned garbage can is first to break character.

It’s only July!

I hear a feeble voice come.

 

They have failed

and the Red Sea parts.

 

The leader of this faltering enterprise

hits the other on the chest.

 

A woman walks up

and they all get back in character.

 

She just pushes her way past them.

 

Bitch!

the tall one yells.

 

Still October?

I say walking out of the store

and back to my car.

 

No one says anything

this time.

What if Meditation is Just Lazy People Being Smart?

 

What if the Pyramids are just giant cat toys for the Sphinx to play with?

You have so many notions that escape a fine man of letters that it’s an

alphabet soup on top of one another.  Nothing but the slaughterhouse

keeps the pigs from squealing.  A call to arms along Bullshit Road.

No use floating around an idea.  Just write that damn book titled:

Hammer Head Sharks Are Down Syndrome Tuna and Other Tales

of the Ocean Deep.  Everyone will hate you anyways, may as well get

a head-start.  If you’re looking for upstairs, it isn’t downstairs –

that is about as philosophical as trench foot ever gets in this muddy

suffocating battle of attrition.  Don’t be the first, the lead car always

gets it from all sides.  A pie eating contest full of enemy lead which makes

me think the many false starts are on purpose.  What if meditation

is just lazy people being smart?  An excuse for general inactivity?

No use blowing your wad after Miss Jane Russell has left the building.

Some sweetheart deal from the state that doesn’t involve holes in the socks.

Each time your heart begins to race, you are a teddy bear being tossed

in the air by a laughing child.  Hookers sold as “room service with lipstick” 

if you’ll agree to testify.  Turkish delights if you are ever in flighty brown Ankara.

The markets visiting you and your buying power as much as you

and your wallet ever visit the markets.  It is always advantage someone,

like in tennis.  The game of games on the line.  Which is how you know

you are standing at the base of some grade school science fair 

baking soda volcano.  Punched out cigarettes and a cloud of ash.

All things build upon each other like some stinking last slag pile

you once called friends before you finally knew.

 

Jealous Water

 

If you were so serious about quitting drinking,

then what the hell was water

doing at your house last night?

I sneered.

 

She had nothing to say to that,

seemed confused.

 

I could tell she was being deceptive.

 

The water ran out of the tap,

so that I had caught them

in the act.

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.