RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

 

RYAN

QUINN FLANAGAN

 

Face Lift

 

No one could be sure why they were craning

that ugly dumb gargoyle face up onto the side of the building,

six men on the ground to attach it to a hoist

and three more defying gravity to set it into place,

plus the crane operator and site foreman –

the building was getting a makeover and this giant gargoyle head

sticking its tongue out at everyone was part of the deal,

over a dozen men in yellow hard hats lifting this awful face

onto the side of this building down in the central business district;

no one could tell how many tax dollars had been wasted

this time.

 

Con Juan

 

Widows are desperate

to find love after their husbands

and here is this Con Juan

at all the early bird dinners,

the many themed  dances

offering all his attentions

more than anything else

and a sophistication straight

from the movies,

so that these old birds

grow fascinated,

opening a joint chequing account

and offering all their worldly

possessions and even their dead

husband’s pension that was supposed

to set them up for life

to this new man who promises

to touch them in a way they have not

been touched in years;

leaving town when the accounts

have been emptied,

at least three dozen alias’

and counting.     

         

Circuit Bored

 

apropos –

I bet you never thought you’d see that word

in any poem of relatable merit,

but the circuit is bored, we all need a rewire now and then,

something to shock us right out of our shoes like an

entire new way of NOT walking, it is the laziness being

emphasized here and never the person who is usually just

some frumpy overweight mouth-breather with unicorns

or old butter stains on their pyjamas and a mortgage that keeps them

in debt so that half the cars that speed past their building

sound like they cost too much in

the twisted sideways rain.

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.