RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN

 

I Cannot Stand The Sky 

 

The sky has no symmetry.

I cannot stand the sky.

 

How do more people not look up and vomit in their mouth?

Hate is a stupid strongman contest word which is why I do not use it.

         

But the sky is in between hang-ups.

A careless powderpuff of clouds on the move.

 

I can think of at least a half-dozen better ways to spend an afternoon 

than craning my neck up to sweet-talk the ailing space junk 

stratosphere out of its last charming oxygen.

 

Sitting in parks for long hours of someone else's clumsy newspaper 

espionage, standing tall for ambitious shoots of grass on the grow.

 

If you have a better idea, 

do not hesitate the send it to The Smithsonian.

 

Those wonderstruck Wallys are always looking to trace the latest 

alphabet belch back to guttural zero.

 

Nature Poem 

 

That drum-slap of spawning salmon off sun-sprinkled water, 

stone shoreline milleted underfoot, hissing insect arrangements in thorny 

green-spirited bramble bush no man has tempered.

 

 

Siren’s Call

 

I see the siren’s call, but never hear it.

Two young summer things waving loudly from the curb.

Hollering after the cars that pass in traffic.

One of them has a red rucksack over her shoulder.

Both in blue jeans and floral shirts knotted below the breast.

The heat bouncing off the pavement in waves.

Undried chewing gum underfoot.

A long-haired man in a green car circle around the block and returns.

The girls wave and jump and cheer wildly.

Our foolish young Ulysses pulls up against to the curb.

 

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.