Tag: Ontario

Categories
Poetry

Purple Deadnettle, at the Foot of a Failing Rockface 

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Courtesy: Creative Commons
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. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

‘Seeds Fall to the Ground’ 

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Courtesy: Creative Commons
‘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. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Pinnacle by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Courtesy: Creative Commons
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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Standing in a Vineyard, Souring All the Grapes

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Courtesy: Creative Commons
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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Slices from Life

The Seven Grandfather Teachings

By Saeed Ibrahim

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.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Categories
Poetry

Mannequin

By Ryan Quinn Flanagann

Courtesy: Creative Commons
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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Categories
Poetry

The Eternals 

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Art by Mrinal Kanty Das. Courtesy: Creative Commons
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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Categories
Poetry

Iron Maiden Voyage  

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Categories
Poetry

Seven Blocks

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The bust of an aging man by Rembrandt(1606-1669)
7 BLOCKS 

7 blocks from an untenable position,
the boys in the service fill sandbags,
pack them high as the walls of the 
county courthouse.

6 blocks of freshly paved roads,
the fowler’s avian arms outstretched
like the masts of barnacled boats
in the shallow harbour.

5 blocks is a fair distance for laboured breathers,
a peace offering in a brown paper bag,
the smell of the tobacconist’s all through
my clothes and peerless smoke signal mind.

4 blocks where the cramps set in,
I was once a young man:
sinewy, bothered, flooded as basement 
apartments during the rainy season.

3 blocks of office tower stairwells,
long lines for all the food trucks,
enough polished shoes to never bang
on greasy thrift shop windows again.

2 blocks from a joint decision,
all that sobbing and tears over the phone,
switching ears with an impatient receiver.

1 block of small boutiques,
the chocolatier with crushed nuts over everything,   
not a mother in sight nor strollered 
push cart child.

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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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL