Two poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Neverland Always Seems Just a Tinker Bell Away

Digging the fire pit with drunks all around,
raccoons in trees of their own design,
a Degas hangs branch limp with Dreyfus impotence
while Baryshnikovs in tights do pirouettes around the dawn.
The university is handing out papers with signatories,
yacht cubs fill with generations,
Equality is a halfway house with bad plumbing,
three flushes more than chili bowls
in lieu of plunger.

The ice rink is filled with hothouse tomatoes,
heavy flow periods determined by Zamboni cycles,
while bean counters switch professions
and night stalkers try out balaclavas
in front of mirrors that make you look fat
while the diary is reassuring
and the bible is not.

A guitar solo with a little off the top,
Geneva Conventions vacationing on a beach
in the South Pacific
while the world is at war.

Neverland always seems just a tinker bell away.

What might have been,
with wings.

===================

The Caterpillars Have Surrendered and Turned Into Butterflies

The magpies sing of things gone wrong,
burnt toast in the morning and a stake full of witches
when you're out of matches,
crooked faces look so bankrupt at right angles,
paper cuts stand in for the apocalypse,
obfuscated children play catch in backyard enclosures
in life, as in chess,
pawns always make the first move,
walking the dog does not make you a good person,
Shakespeare as a shopping cart
would take your last quarter.

I love the smell of orange juice in the morning,
an escaped balloon dangling red over the tree line,
Berserkers on the end of the blade,
PC load letters out of paper,
lice on the follicles, laying eggs,
waiting with flowers
for the 10 o=clock ferry from Long Island,
Socrates was a pederast in all the right places,
young mouths weaned off breast milk
like the fool in some Fellini movie,
Patton fishing for tanks along the banks of the Seine,
tree houses meant to last forever.

Birdsong breaks the Top 40 from my bedroom window,
the first kisses and last rites of black and white movies
are exploding in technicolour,
cross-dressers in the pantry,
tax attorneys in the red,
the dew strewn hyacinths are in bloom a few doors down,
the stukas of Dover are still awhile off,
peeling pears with a crawfish knife and careless fingers

as the caterpillars surrender
and turn into butterflies.

Author bio:

Ryan Quinn Flanagan was a gateway mannerism in a past life. He prefers books without endings and wars without beginnings, but is not overly picky...except when it comes to parking spaces and toothpaste.