Thrownness
A choice? Not one of those.
And now Martin with his thrownness.
I am a javelin with dangling heredity legs.
Booster cables for the heart’s long winter.
Salamander-crawled into full stride absurdity.
Birch-bark canoes hollowed out by seedy melons.
A voice? I have one of those.
But only in a most personal sense,
which is still never mine.
Box cutter legions sans box.
The spilling somersault children
laughing away
away away.
Classic Car Run
First a red one with four front headlights
and the roof down.
Followed by a powder blue boat
with fishtails.
Then a mint green roadster
and about four or five
other beauties.
All waxed and shiny in the sun.
Driving down the highway.
A classic car run.
They do this each weekend.
Take their babies out.
Turn some heads.
Restored and roaring past.
At 18 miles to the gallon.
Calm Colours
What happened to the calm colours
the broken telephone of each other?
Hanging ivy over non-prison walls?
If I don’t have the stones, I certainly have
this foolish brimstone gall on my side.
The union there to protect the union
and all its dues
while the company legal team
employs so much litigation
there is really no room to employ
anyone else.
That 50-something forklift driver counting pallets
like next of kin,
the straight 40-line worker can’t keep up.
Those with gains protecting their gains
and never other’s losses.
Which is how I have always lost
and keep getting very drunk now
on these many long nights
of carless broken glass.
Dizzy with effect.
Falling into bed
like a personal meteor shower.
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, Bourgeon, TheSongIs.., Cultural Weekly, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Chrysler_300_1963_5311466.jpg
