Ryan Quinn Flanagan

He gave me this address downtown
so that I knew he had money or was squatting or married
well enough to drink champagne from flutes
that once graced a city orchestra
and I felt like some long-lost bearded Odysseus
the entire ride down on the train,
as though I was on the wander, even in my own city
which I believe is what he was going for all along
that first time he called asking about planters
he knew I would never have.

I got out my pencil and scratch pad
and asked her to sit for me.

A large smile shot across her face.
She seemed very excited.

I told her to try to remain as still and quiet as possible.
Then I took a long look and began drawing.

She shifted a few times but remained fairly still.
An hour later I put down the pencil,
announced that I was finished.

I showed her the sketch on my scratch pad.
At first, she seemed confused, then angry.

I could not understand why.
I’d drawn a very beautiful city.

Apple juice leaned in close to prune
juice and said prune juice would not
believe what apple juice had heard
orange juice say about grape juice
who claimed orange juice was just sour
about how pineapple juice and
grape juice had become an item
according to tomato juice who apple said
was playing both sides.

It could have been there for days,
I have no idea when it first appeared
or what may have caused it;
dinners’ past a popular culprit,
but I found myself unable to narrow
things down,
there was a four-day window
since I had changed my clothes last,
the smell was my smell and the familiar
seldom spooks you;
just this single spot
halfway down my shirt,
not round like a simple drop
of something,
but rather some unnamed shape
hurtling back from the abyss
which I had failed to
encounter before.

I am no architect, when it happens it is hardly expected
and never my doing, but it seems to me that lionizing
any human is just building the mane, creating myths
out of bad breath, lazy burping sciatica…
Foundation stories so unbelievable they must be true,
that is the opinion and the sentiment;
I couldn’t be more gun shy if I knew the trigger man,
“deconstruction” is a messy word these days, everyone building
everyone else and upon everyone else, but maybe a little less
toot on the horn is just what is needed; all this posturing
and not a single back willing to carry the load –
I don’t blame them, I am no longer a mule…
My back is shot and the shooter is riddled with bullets.

parading around
with the gobshite army,
bristling bearded face
scowling tetrahedrons back
into shape
and this moment of indecision
is all it takes,
tiny feline vacillations
about staying in or out,
Isaac Newton’s cat door
said to be the first of its kind;
a thinking man needs time
to think,
arrange his clothespin thoughts
upon strange laundry lines
that droop from weight
and age.

It must be alive. I grab my shirt by the collar and
read the label. Polyester. I knew it felt like I was wearing
someone else’s dead skin around town. No wonder people
kept looking at me. I just assumed they had confused my glowing
personality with the sun. Turns out it was the whole dead skin
thing which is a mild disappointment. I look through my closet
and find one cotton shirt. I promise never to wash it again
now that I know it breathes. Simulated drowning is not cool,
especially if you are the one being water boarded. I am not
some riches to rags fascist on the government dime. Cotton
breathes like I breathe. I think we will be good friends.
When I stick you in my ears, it is a harmless prank. A wet Willie
by other means, but never out of malice. I bet if I hooked
a cotton swab up to an EKG I could get a heartbeat. I realize
you are not much of a talker, but it would be nice to be able
to hear you once in a while, my friend.

Hands behind the back
could this be an
arrest?

Civil disobedience
is cutting the tag off your
brand new mattress
with kitchen scissors
of knowing.

Let the deaf mutes make gang signs,
the 40-hour week is waiting.

I have found it and floundered
like idiot archaeology.

The plane is too small.
Some of the luggage is left behind.
It will be at your destination
when you get there.

The stewardess smiles.
The luggage sitting on the tarmac
With sticky tags around the handles.
The plane is too small.

Everyone coughs.
The pilot sounds like a real cowboy.
The seats are too small.
The luggage on the tarmac.

Only 900 were ever built.
This is one of them.
The plane is too small.
The stewardess is coughing.

editors note: Let’s get this thing off the runway; all cough together. – mh clay

Is that a security detail walking beside you,
or a cane?

The car won’t start
and the mind won’t stop.

If you could unlearn me, you would have by now.

Quality demonstrates craft.
Quantity illustrates consistency.

Dizzy hopscotch girls jumping into the sun.

I wouldn’t spend another dime
on this nickel of a life.

Afternoons are best for me.
Mornings should be banned.