Tag: Ontario

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. 

.

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. 

.

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