Musical resonance, the skeletal grind, wheel well tumblings on a red vineyard clime – Sardinian giant wormholes, shivering, stuck on a what in the world island, heaving cardamom can’t work corners, the formation of sand and mixtape spools, a cursory lust over the wanting membrane: frothing, feasting, ruthlessly ensnared And Jericho was no one’s lover, scorned his heart for an apple-bride’s cleaver, drove scurvy from the harbours, devoured the worm from the bottom of the bottle, held Man high as the oldest scar, taunting the land with boundless shadows: inventor of the first way to die.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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The old man and the sea, painting by Anne Weirich (Public Domain)
Of all things comprised, my unwitting alibis –
cove familiar shoulders in hunch, a mortuary stillness,
whale song across a darkened harbour,
the ghost of old pipe smoke through a ripened air
and rattily seated upon this chair, this porch,
a man of great age and weather;
a bottle of scotch and a single malt glass
on a nearby table – the roaming vicissitudes;
no pining gallant plight, no hands of shared warmth,
just a language so bare and true
as no man will be incited,
no love startled back from the breathless
unmoved depths.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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Purple Deadnettle, at the Foot of a Failing Rockface
I turn that corner, towards the galloping glue factory homestretch,
stumble upon this wild patch of purple deadnettle,
at the foot of a failing rockface, run calloused sweat fingers
down the side of fresh barber craft, hair off the neck like the oily
gallivanting gallows given a stay in the bottom of the slimy
eleventh and the UV warnings are out in numbers
like idiot storm troopers so that agoraphobia
is the new 30 –
the bugs don't bite any more than the relentless taxman
and everything leaves its mark if we are honest,
which of course we are not, so that the lie is fed and grows
large as some less than panicked Godzilla-stomped city
taken right out of the movies and given some sorry phonebook
name that anyone could call by mistake, so that fear is the crutch
of the dreaming bed head Man brought to wake.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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‘Seeds fall to the ground, something grows’
Nestled so close to harpied shore,
seeds fall to the ground, something grows –
what has been replaced, never in true replica,
it is but for these small changes that that I find myself
ambered in thought, wrenched mandibled and Langoliered
as if the thick black ledger has gone to town and left a deep flush
pulsing to be felt by personal agitators; if I seem pensive,
know that the millwright has never been the machine,
these oats of a ponderous farling…
And see how the diving gulls parry,
the many deboning stations along fisherman’s wharf
lost to scaler’s ardour;
a heaviness overcomes me that is no simple sleep,
never suffocating, so much as revelatory:
imposter fish, locksmith, birth mother…
Everyone is in the service of someone.
Even if that service is
of the Self.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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Crest not bade me soul – not a more perfect sentence in the
language. Tops! The pinnacle! I wasn't there yet, for the crest had
not bade me. The shoulders of my shirt cinched down between
drowsy hanging arms, revealing a scraggly dark patch of chest hair.
If there were gifts left to give, they would come by those splintered
brazen workbench hands. Unshuttered windows, that briny
squawking clime of distant sea air. Great parapets of lost concealments.
Bilging heels gong-rung together in startled splay.
Suddenly, like banshees wailing across the moors – it came!
"Christ hath bathed my soul," the beautiful voice sparkled. I looked
up from the pew to find a priest standing over me. Cherub-faced
and nipper drunk. A smile like fresh linens. A great light! – "Crest
not bade me soul," I muttered inaudibly. His way was fine too
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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They could not stop arguing.
Lobbing the most vile of accusations at one another.
At this wine tasting in Southern Ontario.
In spite of the wonderful weather.
The host trying to ignore them as he poured.
These two vipers having escaped the pit.
Now standing in a vineyard, souring all the grapes.
So that you would taste it in the bottle
when it came time to pick the harvest.
That petty jealousy that kept them at each other’s throats.
Surrounded by all those grapes
that could not escape that overwhelming anger.
Their rancid lives infusing everything,
you could feel it!
A sudden heavy cloudiness of sky.
No one driving and everyone sauced.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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A carving by Indigenous artist Garrett Nahdee was installed a year ago on 18th November 2021 in the Legislative Chamber of Canada’s Ontario Assembly amidst fanfare and widespread media coverage. What could have been the significance behind this much publicised event and the sculpted panel being given a place of prominence above the chamber’s main door?
The panel, called Seven Grandfather Teachings, are a set of guiding principles that give people the tools for how to live a good life. They form an integral part of the oral traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years, and from generation to generation, through storytelling and ceremonies of the Anishinaabe and other indigenous communities that were the original inhabitants of much of the traditional landscapes of the Great Lakes region of Ontario. Illustrating the Seven Grandfather Teachings, the carving is meant to give symbolic representation to the indigenous people of Ontario, to honour and acknowledge their historical and cultural contribution and to build bridges of reconciliation and understanding between communities.
In a broader sense, however, these ancient teachings embody a philosophy of life that is universally relevant and one wonders if the wisdom of the elders could serve as a panacea to soothe and heal the ills that plague our world today. If followed and put into practice together and as a whole, could they pave the way for a happier, healthier and more harmonious world order?
Garrett Nahdee, who grew up in Walpole Island First Nation, a Anishinaabe reserve in southwestern Ontario, is not only the creator of the carving, he himself is a firm believer in its teachings. According to him, for the teachings to be meaningful and effective, change must begin with the individual. “The Seven Grandfather Teachings are great leadership traits, and when they are practiced in everyday life, you will see changes in your life. Burdens will be lifted, and bitterness will deplete, uplifting your spirit to soar to another level of progress.”
Saeed Ibrahim is the author of two books – Twin Tales from Kutcch, a family saga set in Colonial India, and The Missing Tile and Other Stories, a collection of 15 short stories. His other writings include newspaper articles, some travel writing and several book reviews.
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MANNEQUIN
All those weekends with my mother.
Driving out to that K-Mart in the mall
along Bayfield Road.
Leaving me in the toy section
back when such things were okay.
So she could shop on her own.
And how I quickly bored of the toys.
Heading over to the clothing section
to pretend to be a mannequin.
Standing perched up on that display still as I could.
Posed like the family of mannequins
around me.
A few women smiling at my pretend
as they wheeled by.
Even a wink or two.
A moment of shared knowing.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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THE ETERNALS
Discomfort is no friend to be called upon fruitless night,
nor enemy pushed over slanderous blade,
no cavernous mythical beast you may find on a mahjong table;
even prison escapes prisoner sometimes.
Rafters high as angelic asbestos,
persistent cowlick wetted down by tongue and finger
so often never yours, my failures collected like stamps,
mailed off to distant corners.
Odourless resilience, pristine fascinations –
stiffened embankments of the eternals, the devil-less breath,
cackled skullduggery in open doorways;
what I have seen is not enough and what I have lived, too long –
our final dark friend extolled like sweet shop candies to all.
And this simple snap of graphite, more plumbago than diamond,
sheen-less dullard of whoosh whoosh long coats...
grant this pencil recycled hours;
if not for mine, then perhaps that deep swelling culvert
of your many obstructions was never for tears.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
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A Woman’s Head(1958) By Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Courtesy: Creative Commons
IRON MAIDEN VOYAGE
That faded band shirt way
you wait for your order,
got your whole life wrapped up
in condiments
the stark raver behind the cash
with that falling fire escape of hair,
on the run from everything but the law;
it's one smile out the door and some
butcher block cut up for the diary
and you hear some power slave
get his number called,
some chunky oil slick wife beater
with a fistful of straws instead of dollars
and that ship has sailed
somewhere in time Ontario
as the fry hat emo kid slams a tray down
in front of you --
that smell of stake ketchup blotted
over all the tables
as you search out some sodium spilled
shanty by the bathroom;
a parking lot full of rust boxes
pulled in on the lean,
steering wheels hot to the touch
from clutch to column
under some heavy nowhere sun
that just won't stop.
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, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
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Borderless 