RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

HO CHI MINH THE PASTRY MAKER

It was not enough to shovel snow in New York.

Ho Chi Minh the pastry maker of East Sussex.

Heading home after a while to sit in a jungle cave

and climb into your history books while the

elephant grass slept.  To grow his beard out

knowing the Vietnamese respected their elders

in a way many others do not.  And first it was

the French and then the Americans and no

one understood how a pastry maker from

East Sussex knew more about war than all

the generals who didn’t seem to know the first

thing about making pastries and perhaps

the war as well.

 

PARIS FELL ON MY HEAD

Not the real Paris, that would be fatal and I would

not be able to write you this poem, but a large nightscape

print of Paris that hung on my wall, the back of my hand knocked

it last night and the canvas came crashing down on my head,

there is a hole in the Eiffel Tower from where I went through,

the Seine around my neck like a long winding necklace

until I could extract myself from the city,  turning my head in

a panic I knocked over a lamp and a rod iron candle holder

and a box of tissues with different coloured umbrellas

all over it, the canvas was rather large so my reach was

quite impressive and now the canvas sits on the floor

leaning up against a wall by the stairs, Paris lay in ruins

and much of my living room as well, the frame is still intact

so I could probably just order myself another Paris,

or perhaps a smaller city that won’t hurt nearly as much.

 

I BOHEMIAN

Follow the columns down the Appian Way,

looks like the columnists will have job security

for the next four centuries at least

the cartoonists are not so lucky

their satire is drawn on with a frazzled hand

and who ever heard of a light drizzle when you are in it?

chins tucked into chest like hurried keepsakes

those armies of monkeys that work in teams

like the Boston Red Sox with tails and their own

bloody language

I don’t trust the cold because I think it is

always on its way to heating up,

if the cold would just be itself it would

probably have a better reputation

you don’t have to believe me, you know,

this isn’t communion although there is wine;

it stains my lips the colour of stop signs

but I keep drinking anyways

I BOHEMIAN!

shout the deserted abbeys

I BOHEMIAN!

clanks this ornate blue goblet

the way it goes down

you could not imagine a better

planned heist

my affections all with aliases

and on the run.

RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

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, Our Poetry Archive, Setu, Literary Yard, and The Oklahoma Review.