RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

RYAN QUINN

FLANAGAN

Quicksand Silver

was the slowest draw

in the West.

Horses didn’t like him.

People didn’t like him.

Barkeeps wouldn’t hold his tab.

The painted ladies upstairs would not

take his money.

Even the piano man stopped playing

when he came around.

But no one tried to kill him.

Not once.

For fear that they would become the slowest draw

in the West with Quicksand Silver gone.

And word travelled fast as it always does.

A bullet train in chuck wagon times.

The cattle and the cattle rustlers all hated him.

Even a few of the bullet in his own gun.

 

I Watched My Brother

March With All The Others

Graduation day came

and I drove the whole family up to

the military base in Meaford.

Sat in the top third of those wooden bleachers

in the parade square.

To see the shiny new regiments in formation.

I watched my brother march with all the others.

Shaking hands with his CO after the ceremony

as he shook my hand and thought me a sissy

because of my long hair.

And how I didn’t care in the least

because this was a man who had chosen

to take orders and I had not.

I took them each night at the bindery,

but I still fought them.

My brother never did after that.

Even though my father got him out

of the army, he still followed orders.

They had broken him early.

I realize that now.

The way he nodded each time his CO

said anything.

In that gymnasium with six basketball nets

and a few hundred uniforms

all grouped off and meeting with

the families.

 

4 Overturned Buckets

The drummer was banging on 4 overturned buckets

with two trees stumps fashioned into drumsticks

and I thought, I could do that, just look at all those bright

eyed children throwing coins into the hat

and I guess the drummer caught me eyeing his livelihood

because he started punishing the overturned buckets

as nice shoes climbed up out of the subway

and walked behind one another

towards the shops that were all air conditioned

in the dead of summer

with doors wide open

letting the air spill out into the streets

because the bill never mattered as much

as all the rich kids from the 905

that would come in and lay down the

family plastic.

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.