Ryan Quinn Flanagan

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Live-ins

We moved into the new place
and there was someone already
living there.
 
Mice in the walls
that made their way down through
the vent above the stove
and had themselves quite the party.
 
Trouncing through the cornmeal
eating through spice packets 
leaving droppings everywhere.
 
And under the sink
where the gettings were not nearly
as good.
 
We had to throw everything out
when we could hardly
afford to.
 
But we set up traps
and flushed enough bodies
to grace the cover of Serial Murder Monthly
a couple times over
 
and soon the place
was ours.
 
And we stayed there a year
and 7 months,
really made of a home
of it.
 
If anyone knocked,
we answered. 
​

Doors Become Unhinged,
​So Why Not People?

The towel hung over the shower curtain rod
keeps dangling there
and I think of all the condemned men
who could not control their bowels.
 
Buying up all the sparkly nail polish
from this skeleton in cosmetics
and painting each nail a different
colour.
 
Blowing over them as I wait for it to dry.
Imagining myself a runaway lorry
through a busy crowd.
 
Doors become unhinged, so why not people?
Following the tracers of my hand like others
follow each other on social media.         
 
I knew there was the threat of this with extreme isolation.
Astronauts have to get through a battery of tests
for just such an affliction before they can
be shot into space like spent
firecrackers.
 
And I hold my hands over my mouth
so no one can say anything.
Wonder if the small press is nothing but pygmies
and elastic bands.
 
Hide animal crackers in my sock drawer
so the poachers don’t have it
so easy. 
​

Door-to-Door Salesman

Business was slow.
The door-to-door salesman could not sell anything
as the door had not yet been invented
and it was hard to set primordial soup up
on a payment plan.
And there was no love to be had, no anything.
So the door-to-door salesman stood very still
in the darkness.               
Waiting for the doors to arrive.
​

Body Condom

He was the best defense lawyer in the country.
Wore his mistress’ silk panties to trial.
Almost all of his clients were guilty,
so he wouldn’t hear of it.
Just the details: who, where, when,
what, how…
Big on search and seizure.
Civil rights abuses.
Wrapping himself in the law like a body condom
he could use against itself.
Knowing he did not have to prove innocence
as much as he had to instill doubt.
The best defense is a questionable offence.
And to always minimize everything.
Make culpability look like pocket change
you almost forgot about.
Inconsequential as carpet dust.
To tell a story.
Provide a strong working narrative that the jury
could understand.
Simple enough to have done it yourself
without even realizing,
but sordid enough in legal complexities
that even the law itself would be confused.
And that is the real aim.
To use the letter of the law against itself.
To poke holes in everything so that
nothing ever leaves the ground.
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Mouths to Feed

He had only started working at the full-serve
two weeks previous.
He landed the gig through his parole officer
and though the job wasn’t much
it was more than he had.
And it was summer and the oil cartels
were gouging a little less for some reason
so the cars were lined up in long rows
their gas caps removed, each tank hungry
for the nozzle;
many mouths to feed
and he pretended they were all his children
because he had no children
or woman either;
that made things bearable, filling all those tanks
as though they were his children
and depended on him.
When he was finished he wiped his hands with
a crusty blue rag, clocking out before
the short walk home.
His tired feet throbbing in his shoes
like someone else’s stinking
heart.
​
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Fever Pitch

The closer went down with a migraine
so it was fastball by committee.
 
The starter trying to go as long as he could.
Everyone else on a pitch count.
 
Trying to stay ahead of the count
from the mound.
 
And the batters on the other side
were instructed to wait on each pitch
as if waiting on a bus.
 
To extend the count
with runners in scoring position.
 
It was to be a matter of attrition.
Each trying to outlast their first sexual experience
twenty-fold.
 
As the crowd waved their foam hands
and bought up ballpark dogs.
 
In a way the pooches down at the local kennel
could only dream of. 
​

Light Is Just the Dark Pretending

there is no glory in death,
just death;
the remembering of others
and much forgetting
too,          
until there is nothing left
but the whimpering
of rangy pack animals,
the mailman out of the job,
leaking jars of sea water
the myth and the
terror…
sit in the dark, no matter,
the light is just the dark
pretending, sit there as well
if you wish;
squash a bug underfoot
then ask it about glory
and the bug will not answer you
as it is now busy
with the business of
not being
there.
​

Pink Jumpsuits

On the drive south
we pass many men along the side
of the interstate.
                           
Chained together in pink jumpsuits
clearing the gullies and shoulder of debris.
 
A man in uniform standing behind them
with a shotgun.
 
In 90 degree heat
that seems to cook everything
like a Michelin star chef
no one can see.
​

Umbrella Man

Bullets seem a reason to double over
in the golden business of sun
 
umbrella man twirling clockwise
out of puddles of
no rain
                       
trench foot
and only your smile
disarming
 
I feel the sweat of the angels
so soft on my bone…
 
Nothing is perfect.
 
I won’t be long, said Hoffa
as he went for milk.
​

No Survivors

The plane crashed into the mountain
and it was reported that there were no survivors
which made the mountain angry
because it had survived, largely unscathed,
but no one seemed to care
about that.
​

And they asked me about the space program
and I said: YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT

The shuttle crashed to earth
after a week in orbit
and I was that shuttle
coming down off the latest
bender
(much worse for
wear)
and tearful eyes were glued to the television
and the swelling crowds cheered
and national pride was at an all-time high
as I kneeled over the porcelain
and my astronauts came
spilling out.

Delivery Systems

The post office is one, but I doubt
that is what this fearmonger
on the television is talking about
every evening, his hands waving wildly
warning about this and that
his mouth never tiring as though
he has been in a pie eating contest
for 72 centuries;
many delivery systems, FedEx
is another
and the telephone and homing pigeons 
and barbershop quartets
who will sing “Baby Got Back”
to a loggerhead sea turtle
if the money is
right.
​

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