72 Stupas and a Bacon Double Cheeseburger
The cosmic eggs break open.
The fry hat kid on his way to work
is an ardent disciple.
It’s 72 stupas
and a bacon double cheeseburger.
Celestial stairways
on a sesame seed bun.
The blades of oscillating fans gone ballistic
and wombs of transformation.
Chartered planes out of unregistered tax havens.
Just ask Miss Manan DeBoer, a most pious lady.
She goes to California for her wine,
and the cemetery for her grief.
The Race Car Driver
The man
walking in front of me
was a race car driver,
I could tell.
Always
in such a hurry.
The tight corners
he took.
When I got out
to the parking lot,
I looked for his car.
Nothing but shit boxes
and the lemons
who drove them.
A screaming child
with the face
of an angry squid.
It's smiling mother,
a tired tower
of antidepressants.
Toppled carts
and crinkly clearance sale
banners
No one was catching
the race car driver.
Not with nitrous
and never down
the stretch.
Ballerina Death
Leotards can practice all they want,
but when the growth spurt does not come
in the proper manner like it has for the other girls,
it is ballerina death, it is tears into patterned pillows,
stout chunky limbs unsuitable for the craft:
the instructor is still kind enough to take the money,
but favourites are played and attentions diverted,
the critiques become more forceful, trying to scare
the unsuitable ones off, so nothing ever has to be said;
it is a cowardly system of purge and plight,
but that can be said of most any human enterprise
ever thought of, at least her parents do not put her in traction
like Lautrec, trying to make a giraffe out of a nesting doll:
remember when they said smoking and drinking would stunt your growth?
All the fun things our poor little Nureyev has so much more
time for now.
The Binding of Someone Not Named Issac
A van with out of state plates
jumped the curb.
The side door opened
and three masked men
jumped out.
Wrestled this suit to the ground
in the heart of the central business district.
Secured him with ropes and ties.
The binding of someone not named Issac.
A witness said
the man’s name was Peter
or Pete something.
Tossed into that van
that sped away at a dashing
snake charmer’s
pace.
100 Free Throws
He had made 100 free throws
in a row.
All in the exact same fashion,
not a single bounce off the rim.
"So,
you still don't think
we live in a simulation?"
he smiled.
"Take another shot."
"That's not part of the simulation"
he said.
I really wanted him
to take that shot.
He had me thinking.
Perhaps
that was the plan
all along.
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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