Air Traffic Lover

 

It is mission accomplished –

she is in the bathroom cleaning up

and I roll over and start digging through

his side drawer by the bed,

pull out all these giant dildos that wobble in my hands

so that when she returns, she finds me

standing buck naked in the middle of her bedroom

unable to answer her; another hard working

air traffic lover guiding the planes into their waiting bays

with twin jiggling ribbed glow in the dark wands

and a no nonsense focus

while some crazy woman runs onto the tarmac naked

screaming: WHAT THE HELL!

and is tackled by airport security.

 

Harvester of Organs

 

Harvester of organs –

I believe one of us is double parked

and the other beyond caring;

I leave the scalpel to you, doctor fly by night,

I am stuck in the middle of this life

with the window rolled down,

some strange breakout on my elbow

that causes me to itch at inopportune times,

I’ll take kidneys for 800, Alex!

Keep the change.

It is better that I never know your name

nor you my address.

We must be careful to not become friends.

I see you eyeing my pancreas, mister love handles!

Behind those child’s sunglasses that have

found their way around your head.

 

X Woman

 

Would you ever date a girl with an x carved in her forehead?

he asks after too many beers.

 

The bartender scoffs

and moves the bowl of peanuts away

so such conversations do not become contagious.

 

That was just those crazy Manson chicks, I say.

What real woman is going to walk around shopping

for organic veggies with a bloody x carved in her forehead?

 

The blood dries, he says.

It’s not permanent.

She can clean it up real nice,

think of it as a tattoo.

 

It’s not the blood that’s the problem.

But I know you’d be all over that,

I laugh.

 

And you wouldn’t?

 

No!

I say.

 

I can see he doesn’t believe me.

Even if the rest of her was smoking hot?

 

Such a woman does not exist,

I say.

Why don’t you finish the rest of your beer

which does, so we can get out of here.

 

He gets up and stumbles off to the bathroom

without finishing his beer.

 

Your loss,

he yells back across the bar.

She’d be a maniac in bed!

 

And everywhere else,

the bartender says

under his breath.

 

No shit,

I say

downing the last

of his piss warm beer.

 

Making that pained face

that knows we will be seeing each other

again later.

 

There is no one else in the bar.

Just a ceiling of open insolation hanging down.

The way the fibreglass gets in the lungs.

 

No way to tell if it is still light out.

The front window tinted dark

and duct tape over the door from the last

disagreement that got out of hand.

 

The clock on the wall is broken.

I wobble off my uneven stool and step in gum

that has yet to dry.

 

A single green wad

I have been careful to avoid

until now.

 

Killjoy Dance

 

I could never

imagine being a cop.

 

So much

of my adolescence

was spent running

from them.

 

The Only Kid in High School with Tattoos

 

There were always a few greaser candidates in shop.

Held back a couple years and rebuilding engines

so that you wondered why they never became mechanics

and started making money.

 

Perhaps there was a criminal record that held them back.

With full beards and half a decade older than everyone else.

The jocks left these skids alone.

 

Even with their constant presence,

I was the only kid in high school with tattoos.

Had come back from a year away in the city

with multiple tattoos from a summer

of roofing money.

 

In a black leather jacket

and army camo bandana.

Looking much more threatening

than I was.

 

Like how I took biology class all those years ago

and wore a necklace full of animal parts around my neck

to deter the bullies.

 

Putting everything in vinegar to kill the smell.

Frog legs, bird eyes, wavy fish tails

etc.

 

Reciting all the home addresses of all the bullies

and their extended family back to them

so that my friends could stop paying them

and were left alone.

 

I must admit,

I always held that against

my friends.

 

That they never fought back.

That they would not defend themselves.

By any means necessary.

 

I was ready to die

and they all seemed to be

getting ready for college.

 

It was a positional thing.

Like Nascar.

 

Maybe he said that, maybe he didn’t

 

No one can know for sure anyways,

he’s long gone and that’s that,

no use sweating lemon peel

for rind, let the streets and pulpit

and silly lectern talk,

no one really knew the man

and those that pretend to often have

more immediate motivations,

nothing to do with him and everything

to do with them and you’re no bird,

so why are you regurgitating into the

clamouring mouth of rumour?

People go missing every day.

And who the hell knows what they say.

 

Dealer’s Plates

 

Wipe your ass

and celebrate another

New Year.

 

Spread happy herpes

to unsuspecting

idiots.

 

With glow in the dark hats

and live in the gym abs.

 

The dropping of the ball.

In distant bedbug motels.

 

Some carless brown shit box

down in the lot.

 

With dealer’s plates.

Collecting a careful

trader’s card

rust.

 

As I stand under the shower.

Let the water meet my naked body.

 

Dress in silence

as though anyone can be

a church.

 

Private Property

 

She comes over and hands me her number,

tells me to call her.

 

Well, I don’t think my wife would like that very much,

I say flashing my ring.

 

Call me,

she says.

Walking off with her friends

as though she doesn’t care

in the least.

 

Which is why I have to care twice as much.

To make up for all the rest of

you assholes.

 

When my wife returns from the bar,

I hand her the card.

 

She crumples it up

without even looking

this time.

 

Kisses me on the cheek.

A real wet one so everyone

will notice.

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, Punk Noir Magazine, The New York Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, Gutter Eloquence, The Dope Fiend Daily, and The Rye Whiskey Review.

Throwing Shade

 

He says it is nothing like discus.

Kind of like the javelin

and less like medicine balls.

 

This one who talks like he competed

in the Olympics.

 

A red Gold’s Gym muscle shirt

to show off his veiny arms.

 

Making his pecs bounce around

whenever the young girls from the nearby

high school walk by.

 

Those things creep me out.

The girls take no notice.

They are all zombies on their phones.

 

As this 2-time Olympian of his own mind

tells me what it’s like to throw shade.

How many years he had to train.

 

I can’t get him to talk about the steroids,

but he won’t shut up about everything else.

 

You have to medal or no one cares,

he says.

 

I don’t care,

so he must not have medalled.

 

I try to show him a spiky green weed

growing right up the middle of a busy anthill

in my driveway.

 

He doesn’t care either.

The sound of wind chimes

four doors down.

 

A lawn care service rushing by.

Someone’s lawn must be in trouble.

 

 

A Single Tarnished Bell Over the Door

 

You can sit in the coin laundry

and never once get clean.

 

A single tarnished bell over the door

to announce dirty garbage bag newcomers.

 

Flipping through magazines in that stale coffee breath

doomsday clock way everyone is single.

 

A broken red milk crate propping

open the bathroom door.

 

Ignore the purists.

These are places of cultures.

 

Where the truth is hammered out

one tumbling dark load at a time.

 

 

Valet Guys

 

I think the valet guys jack off in my car,

she says.

I stick to the driver’s seat whenever

I get back in.

 

And they’re always these young kids

working on their first disappointing

three pumper.

 

If they get the girl pregnant,

they’ll marry her.

 

She has tan leather seats.

I ask her if they are not just getting

that way because it is summer.

 

Not that sticky!

she says.

A woman knows the difference.

 

I assume

she knows what she

is talking about.

 

Speak much less

so I can hear her voice

instead of mine.

 

 

Always a Pliedsmaid, Never the Plied

 

He had money

and was good for drinks.

 

Hit on the waitress who kept them coming.

 

Even though he was short and ugly,

a gameshow Casanova.

 

She enjoyed the tips

and couldn’t care less.

 

And this one had his own car back when most did not.

Leased from his uncle’s car lot in the city.

Stole from his workplace to make the payments.

We were still in high school.

 

It was all for show.

And this one was scared of losing control.

Which is why he bought drinks for everyone else

and always nursed his own.

 

Always a pliedsmaid, never the plied.

Even on his birthday.

Our fake IDs worked well enough.

His money was always welcome.

 

We never had any problem getting served.

And he would get others to buy one as well.

I once did eighteen shots of mystery drinks in a row,

then downed my beer because it was my birthday.

 

You never wanted it to be your birthday.

There was no telling where you would end up.

We all punished each other ruthlessly.

 

When your birthday came around, you were fucked.

But this one always fronted the money and sat in the wings.

A total vampire getting off on the carnage.

 

I’m Irish and could always handle my drink, but only so much.

It’s the pain and suffering this one wanted.

And I gave him that in spades.

 

I wanted to suffer.

And I did.

 

 

Saliva Races

 

I rub the faces

of expensive car chases

without end.

 

Bits of scratchy stubble

over torn paper sleeve

record shop vinyl.

 

The kids outside the arcade

spitting on the window

and having saliva races before

being chased away.

 

If I was looking for a serial shooter,

I would take the top ten high scores

of the shoot ‘em up game

and go calling.

 

It’s the cheapest way to practise

and avoid the cameras.

 

Really double down on everyone else’s

rent controlled investment.

 

Follow pull out couches back from bed.

 

Art supplies are so expensive now.

No one can afford to make a mess.

Experimentation has gone out the window.

Not the dirty coin monster window

of the downtown arcade.

 

This loss is so much greater.

Like burying the family dog under

almost a foot of cement.

 

Earthy head shops on the second floor

after that throbbing Escher hallway

back up into lost Peter Tosh music.

 

Cabbies with fares

that know

they are being taken.

 

On the scenic route.

Pulling up to lights and slamming on the brakes

in squeaky yellow increments to alert

the meter to movement.

 

While I cross my arms in busy elevators.

Watch the numbers go down.

Stand at the back so no one is behind me.

 

Then out onto the street.

The sound of sirens and tartan sleeping bags

coughing right beside me.

 

Some girl with short purple hair

handing out posters for

her band.

 

A single sudden wipe of the forehead

with back of hand.

 

This misguided way I fill my pockets

with candle light vigils.

 

Unbutton a shirt from the $5 rack

that has never once believed

in anything.

 

 

Up start

 

swing

for

the

fences

 

that

no

one

has

bothered

 

to

paint

 

breath

in

that

selfish

 

brown

ramshackle

 

air.

 

 

He Pulled a Gun Over Toilet Paper

 

It was just the other day.

Down in the city.

An argument ensued over a dwindling

toiletries supply.

 

The world has gone bonkers again.

Over a virus this time.

Rushing around like some weird sci-fi movie

about the end of the world.

 

Panic buying the shelves clean.

And the two most prized possessions

seem to be toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

 

People are selling both online for $300 apparently.

But this particular argument is face to face.

And he pulled a gun over toilet paper.

 

I don’t know how the bloody thing ended,

but I’m guessing he got his damn

toilet paper.

 

I just like that people are hiding indoors

and staying away.

 

I never thought this day would come.

I probably haven’t been this happy

since I was ten years old.

 

People avoid me and say nothing.

So peaceful.

 

 

 

Broken Windows & All that Glass

 

We agreed to meet at this pool hall

that seemed to have something against 8-ball.

 

They had gotten rid of all but two old tables,

replacing the rest with snooker.

 

Which is a lot harder to play

if you drink.

 

And this one was still on his first girlfriend.

Wanted to know if it was weird that she only gave head

to him with the condom on.

 

Long before his wife that was proud of being funny and never intimate.

I told him it was kinda weird that she would rather suck back

half an army of spermicide rather than the swimmers.

 

He wanted my opinion because I was the go-to-guy.

That same crazy fucker who got the high school bullies

to stop demanding lunch money each week.

 

He never knew why.

He just knew to thank me

when they stopped.

 

Which is a roundabout way of saying I had

some respect even when I didn’t

respect myself.

 

Broken windows and all that glass.

1200ft of toilet papered cars.

 

A new house up for sale each day

because we moved the signs.

 

Carried the bloody things on our backs.

Just a few years earlier.

 

Switched all the licsecne plates

in an eight block radius

with this screwdriver from my father’s

red tool box.

 

Because I never seemed to care

as much as the sparkly happening

world.

 

Casuals

 

He flexes

and makes this strange

shirtless pacing grunting

noise to impress the casuals,

announces that he hasn’t lost a

fight in over four years

which is true,

the last time this one was drunk

and mouthy enough to take

the walk was over four years ago,

but he makes enough noise

that the wafer thin anorexic girls think him

a regular, the victim of some lucky punch

from some animal just out of prison

whose been doing nothing but

push ups and time,

so they wake him up and bring him home,

taking it upon themselves

to nurse this flabby pub crawl asshole

back to imagined health,

until he sweet talks them back out of lost virginity

and cleans out their bank accounts

so that they become enraged with all men

even though it was one man with a pretty face

and they were dumb enough to buy the hustle

and go all in.

 

Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, Punk Noir Magazine, The New York Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, Gutter Eloquence, The Dope Fiend Daily, and The Rye Whiskey Review.