we are all thin columns
of air
kleenex jellyfish sucking at one another
with paper thin gasps of rueful desperation.
Reaching.
----------Reaching.
--------------------Reaching.
for that one good hug
we remember from the family album
but somehow know
we can
--------------------never
----------find
again.
we are Columbus' rudderless flagship
on its way to nowhere.
Chance crying out at the roulette wheel
as the house takes the spoils
and leaves us all drunk on the dream
and broken
with one another.
Stray cats claw out each other's intestines
over half a sandwich
as we weep at the moon
for lovers who have forsaken us
with their tardy happiness.
High rollers who may have ended up behind on the chip count
but made off with the soap
and towels
when no one was looking.
Even the crooked stems of a neighbour's garden roses
cannot conceal the way your tiny agonies
make everyone smile
in the high
----------stinking
--------------------wind.
The paper or plastic boy knows there is a third option
but he will never tell you.
Fingernails pulled out one by one
and still you are no closer to paying
the phone bill.
--------------------Disinherited
----------free thinkers
line up
for their ideas
and buy back second rate epiphanies
at four times the price.
The annunciation fell through when the child
on the back of your milk carton
went missing
and the revelation lost it's lustre
when the mother was forced to Virgin birth
a watermelon
and hold it instead.
we are traffic jams without meaning.
Progress,
with nowhere to go.
Our minutes
hours
and days
are spent chasing away weeks
and months
that climb through the windows at night
and run off with our years.
we are slivers of Valhalla
under the dark senseless moon.
The petrification of prey
in the tall grass
does little to alleviate
your childish anxiety about what to wear.
White after labour day is now a war crime
if I'm not mistaken
as are candlelight dinners
walks on the beach
and brushing from left
to right.
The salt of our tears
flavour the bounty of the gods
as Ganymede pours the wine
and Fortuna toasts our petty misfortunes.
But enough of gods
and Ferris wheels
and things that don't matter.
Are we alone with the sun?
Was there never any other way to smile
than the one your mother taught you
when you had to pretend to like something
because you were a guest?
What of lifting rocks?
Prometheus fumbling with the bra strap?
What of broken curfews
and honest lies?
There is a flotilla in my dreams
that reaches
----------reaches
--------------------reaches
for shore
but can never quite make out the lighthouse
--------------------I know
----------know
know
should be there.
A salamander in a pet shop tank
shoots it's tongue out at my childhood
with a dumb repetitive wisdom
that makes me hate it.
The goldfish
and baby sharks
are no better
and I find myself alone with the world
again.
Alone in the flabby loins
of the $40 hooker
while her kid begins teething
on a crack pipe
in the corner.
Grocery lists are the abridged appetites of Dictators
who do not have the time
to make five year plans,
and this is all I know
of anything
as I search for your house
from faded directions on the back of my hand
and hope for the best
each time I knock.
The immolations of tapeworms
are NOT for everyone
--------------------when you consider the vociferous way a calendar
----------repatriates a wall
and w h i m sic al cheekbones that paw at your face
----------------------------------------with gentle Matisse-induced incursions
----------against the rouge-soaked-windless-sky.
------------------------------Someone gave me a book about something
--------------------and I made a paper frog out of page 18
and then I used a further bunch of paragraphs
----------------------------------------as napkins
----------when I spilt some wine on the cat.
get it before it gets into the linen closet, a voice screamed
---------------------------------------------there's a linen closet?, I said
----------------------------------------you're letting it escape.
----------There's nothing wrong with jailbreaks, I said
----------as long as the right men are broken.
The cat got into the linens
and made faces that won't come out.
--------------------The gun in my glove compartment is not loaded.
------------------------------I was asked to hold onto it for someone
----------I won't be seeing for awhile (sent upstate).
There is also a corkscrew
--------------------a flashlight (without batteries)
----------and a road map for the area
but those things would not interest you.
When I back out of the drive
----------the yellow hard hat on the floor makes a r-o-l-l-i-n-g noise
that makes me think it may be prudent to pull over
-----------------------------------and look for the corresponding head
------------------------------under the seats.
Selling postcards of made up countries,
nailing diarrhea to the wall,
----------there are worse things you could be doing
----------when you retire.
© Ryan Quinn Flanagan 2010
-----
Ryan Quinn Flanagan presently resides in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. He is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent entitled Pigeon Theatre (JTI Press). His work has recently appeared in The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, Leaf Garden Press, Zygote in my Coffee and The Antigonish Review.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan presently resides in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. He is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent entitled Pigeon Theatre (JTI Press). His work has recently appeared in The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, Leaf Garden Press, Zygote in my Coffee and The Antigonish Review.
