Snipers on the Roof like Angry Pigeons
Another terror threat
in the city
come down
from the politicos
at Queen’s Park
and it’s snipers on the roof
like angry pigeons
seizing the high ground
like Clausewitz once
demanded
catching the snazzy dinner crowd
in the scope
and when I wave to them,
no one waves back
Quite rude,
I say,
I’m not mounting the curb
and driving a car into
anyone.
Stop waving at them,
she yells.
They’ll probably shoot you
in all the panic.
And back
at the hotel
I climb out onto the
16th floor lookout
beside the exercise room
full of sweaty treadmills
and keep waving.
With a liquor store tall can
raised to mouth.
I can feel them
all ignoring me now.
The whole of the rapid
response team.
As I take off my shirt
and try to lick my own nipples.
Half expecting a bullet
above the kneecap
for all my trouble.
Base Jumpers
It is hard to get all the gear up to the top.
You have to be stealthy to get by building security.
Buildings still under construction are the easiest.
There is limited security and often large unfinished floors
to jump from.
But altitude is what matters.
A GoPro cam strapped to the head in the downtown core.
Teams of three or four jumping off into the night.
Weaving their way around the many steel glass towers
of the financial district.
Starting to load up as soon as the feet meet pavement.
The parachute is hardest to reign in.
Packing everything into the back of an SUV.
Laughing because it is illegal and there is adrenalin.
The cops could come at any time.
LCBO
We are back in the city.
At a liquor store in the mall underground.
With a guard by the door in a bulletproof vest
and instructions by the cash about all the exits
in case of a bomb attack.
Seems someone still sleeps
with the night light on,
I say.
The missus elbows me
as some victim in waiting
rings everything
through.
I can see it in her face.
That she is just waiting for a reason to cry.
And they have some old timer
there to bag everything.
Another pair of eyes for shoplifters,
I say.
The missus elbows me again.
I am starting to think she can’t control it.
That there is some condition that makes you keep
elbowing your loved one whenever
they speak the truth.
The girl in line behind us is hardly legal.
But I am no rat.
I hope everyone gets away with everything
so that laws become as useless as toothpicks
never seen from space.
Coyotes in the Stage Show
I guess guitars
were not enough.
Drums and bass
and vocals.
That shitty PA
you borrowed from the closer
with bad teeth
and the bartender taking
his skim from the nightly
nonsense
so these gimmick whores
can lead two coyotes out on a chain
with as many girls
in silver thigh high
bikinis
believing
it will make their
show better somehow
all the roadies
under the houselights
knowing
better.
The Primordial Soup Comes in a Can with Diced
Bits of Carrot
The readers of sheet music confound me.
Sure the earth was formed, but what then?
The primordial soup comes in a can with diced bits of carrot.
Orange like the setting sun.
I don’t make the rules and I hardly
follow them either.
There is this woman with broken bra wires
because of the weight
that does reverse checkmarks
on everything,
a real troubadour.
Her stubborn left-handedness
bothers everyone.
And today at the cannery
I wondered why John Steinbeck
never lost his job.
The men that spilled out onto the street
were sardines in ill-fitting wife beaters.
Sniffing out the bar
like bloodhounds back to
the bad beer.
And games of darts
for failing eyes.
That woman
and her many silly
checkmarks.
The way I blow over my soup spoon
like a wind storm the weather channel
cannot stop talking about.
Downed powerlines and trees.
Could be a couple days.
The grocer’s raided of clean
drinking water.
Don’t panic.
The running of the bulls
only happens in dusty
Spain.
People that pet rats instead of lovers
confuse me.
Waiting shoes by the door
I understand.
Greenland
Greenland
is covered in ice
so why the hell should
I believe anything
from left field?
Throw a curve ball
and the strength behind it
is the angle.
Some off speed lie
the fastball straight down
the pipe sets you
up for.
This is why I hate professional sports.
Besides the fact that they pay
complete assholes hundreds of millions of dollars
to stand around in uniforms
and everyone is on performance
enhancing drugs.
Point shaving
even back to college
once those organized crimers
get their hooks in.
I’d rather sit at home
and read the Harvard
out of E.E. Cummings.
Blow it all up
and begin again.
French Kiss
I am already drunk
and in the pool
trying to get her to come in,
but she is worried about
the levels of chlorine
and skin breakouts
she has had in the past
and I do a little dance
promise her that if she ventures
into the deep end with me
we can French Kiss
for four whole minutes,
reintroduce the tongue
and everything.
You just mean we can kiss
someone French,
I know you.
She does
and I spin around
in circles trying to go fast
enough that no one
cares about either
of us
or the tornado
I have made at half
past seven
on camera
with my shirt
off.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle though his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.