Poems by Ryan Flanagan

Ansel Adams with Cameras for Hands

Civil disobedience on Saturn again.
Mommy’s ring finger is getting rather sore.
When I walk with my feet we are someone else’s entourage.
Bright lights in the sky like never blinking.

Plum icebox Willie Carlos and broken pail Conrad.
This vile archeology of hairballs.
The Chrysler Building with wheels and a driver.
These tremors a personal earthquake.

Au gratin means cheese to the French.
Both in Paris and here in my alcoholic mind.
Septicemia is a good name for a child.
Ansel Adams with cameras for hands.

The starch in your collar and the starch in your diet.
Building decks and alibis with equal vigour.
To die in Monterey is to become a Pop festival.
Order restored on distant Saturn again.

Boom

I landed this job holding a boom mic
over my head for this tv show
that no one would ever watch
and we were taping three episodes a day
and the director was this asshole
who liked to ski
and the boom had one of those grey muffs
over it for the outside shots, and even for some
of the inside stuff when I forgot to take it off
and then the director would get pissed
and the camera guy kept getting mad each time
my arms got tired of holding the damn thing
over my head and the boom got in his shot,
he said it just like that: “his shot,” as though
he were an award winning cinematographer
and not some asshole with a trade union card
and three snotty kids at home,
so that I lifted the mic back up over my head
until my arms went numb and would not stop shaking,
waiting for the director to say cut ​
so I could get some circulation back.

Deer Lake Wax Museum

I am walking around this centuries old house
that is supposed to be a cultural
heritage site.

It is filled will dead animals.
Heads mounted on all the walls
and full sized stuffed ones
in every room.

There are these ladies in moccasins
going around selling pelts.

This man approaches me.
I assume he is the curator.
Looks just like a wax museum, doesn’t it?,
he says.

I don’t answer.
It smells funny.

This giant stuffed grizzly bear
towering over me
as I turn and head for
the door.

Store

I am in the store now.
I was outside before.
There was a large red sign.

But I am in the store now.
There is nothing they can do about it.

I might have money, they don’t know.
They want money and I am in the store.

With pants with pockets and pockets
for a wallet.

Surely I must have money.
I was outside before.

Now I am in the store.

Key Development

I am in this little closet of a shop
down by the water.

Having a key made for my new place.

This old timer in a candy-striped smock
standing over the buffer.

A wrinkly stooped Pollack
with large brown growths
on his face.

There are many locks on the wall as well.
I check the one on the entrance to the shop
figuring this old timer would use the lock
he trusted the most.

There is no open or closed sign.
No one comes in while I am present.
I doubt they even know it is there.

It’s the type of place you walk by
a thousand times without thinking
about it.

When my key is done, the old timer
charges me next to nothing.

I thank him and he nods.
The same way creepy butlers do
in old horror movies that don’t
end well.

Then I am out the door
and back into the
world.

With a shiny new key
tucked inside a small white
envelope.

Past the movie house crowd
spilling out
and date night diners inside
restaurant windows.

Knowing the quietest one in the room
is the strongest one
in the room.

And your noise is the sound of
their victory.

 

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.