“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
― Robert Frost
Me and the Greys, Not the Aliens
but the Towels
Me and the greys, not the aliens
but the towels
on the rack for medieval torture
in pairs like two lanes of traffic
folded over for a man shot in the stomach
slowly bleeding out onto wet cardboard;
Patience is a vulture ever circling, waiting
for inevitability to arrive
to pluck rosy red innards in beak
the hogwash of postcards sent from best foot forward
signed so you know the con is authentic
complete with government stamp
approved the same way drug trafficking is approved
if you know the trafficker
friends in high places, empty nesters,
all that…
And the greys are most loyal.
I rub my filth all over them and they
stick by me.
From wet to dry to wet again.
They begin to smell after a time
but don’t we all?
And their stink and grime is simply me
recognizing my previous self.
So unwilling to change anything
but these towels.
Silence of the Yams
Walking past this car in midtown
I heard this man cussing out
his passenger.
When I looked inside I realized
his passenger was not a person at all
but a bag of yams.
He was angry because it would not answer him.
Shaking it violently as though ringing its neck.
Then he got out and heaved the bag of yams
across the street.
Shouting many unsavoury things.
Skidding his tires in the road
as he sped off in anger.
Throw a Lightbulb at a Dead Rhino
and Call it Fire
I’ve heard the recordings.
All those hours of you speaking badly about me.
The many federal boys in ill-fitting suits were by
to see if they could get something to hold up in court
other than the murals of old dead men
that used to work the gavel.
But I gave them nothing.
Sorry, that is not true.
There was coffee and a cheese platter
and the card of my friend in the city
who pretends to be an electrician by trade
whenever he is on parole
even though he’d try to throw a lightbulb at a dead rhino
and call it fire.
And also a few bags of garbage that never made it out last week
and stunk to the high heavens
so I guess I gave them a lot.
Not as much as you it would seem
Ms. Chatty Box
but I’m still a fine
host.
Author’s Bio:
Ryan Quinn Flanagan
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, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, andThe Oklahoma Review.
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Thought provoking poetry. I love that about poetry, don’t you? Reading, interpreting, re-reading, finding meaning, re-reading again. Yours makes me go back and back again. An exercise for my brain. 🙂
Thanks Michelle! Yes, that is one of my favourite things about reading poems. That you find yourself coming back to them and getting new things from people’s work all the time. 🙂