Ask Frank Stella

—Anonymous Photos

—Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Lake Eliot, Ontario, Canada

SAM SAID

he would be
into work
but he called in sick
and left me hanging
when I was really
sick
but needed the money
which is a whole different
kind of sickness,
and the foreman
kept eyeing me
so that I could see how
he looked
when he desired his wife,
that hog-hungry hatred
of too much time
flaring plugged nostrils
into veiny solipsism,
and when I saw
Sam next
I told him I would
be into work
even though we both knew
neither of us
was going to make it
in that state.

____________________

MILE ZERO

A man
can start a fire
by simply being a
fire:

roaring
searing

out of control

whole worlds engulfed
by the maddening fury
of his simple 
desire.

A man can be many other
things too:

a husband
a father
a long haul
trucker…

Which reminds me,
distance is lie.

Do not believe it.

The road
is your outstretched arms
working their way back
to the shoulder.

 

BLADE RUNNER

I remember
taking a razor to myself
long before I knew what suicide
was.   

Standing over the sink
beside my father
as he got ready for work
in the morning,
copying each movement
even though there was
no hair

ear to chin
like a pro

as my father sprayed
more shaving cream
on

and I pretended
I had a moustache
like gentlemen who speak French
and sit in coffee shops

for long
hours.

__________________

HORNS CHEER YOU ON AS YOU DRIVE
180 MILES/HR. DOWN THE APPIAN WAY

grease the wheel and the palms
make things happen like drive headlong
into oncoming traffic
the bottle tilted, a glove compartment
full of green paper clips
your foot superglued to the accelerator
while the cigar in your mouth
plays at being
Cuban.

ACTIVE SHOOTER

I have never known
another kind

even the straight shooter
has purpose

is lively and vigorous

the shooter girls
at the bar
all with smiles that could
stand in for gold

but the news is reporting
an active shooter
as opposed to an inactive one
which he will be once he
is shot dead.

________________

FRANK STELLA AND HIS
CONTROLLING HUSBAND, ART

the essential
elements

what you see
is what you
see

a post-painterly 2-D
abstraction
of throwing up over the toilet
after a night of straight vodka
and much kissing on
the mouth,
what would that look
like?

I do not know.
You would have the ask
Frank Stella.

 

BIRDS IN THE BEAKS OF HUNGRY WORMS   

taking an eyelash ride
roller coaster face
shaved eyebrow sky overhead
birds in the beaks of hungry worms
for a change
and who put the gumball machine in charge?
war in the name of peace is as good as any
don’t you know why all your bedsheets have eyes?
I’m taking a ride
the circus is in town 
and I hear the bearded lady
is single
drunk on the floor again
spastic cheekbone bonanza
in love with half the ice tray,
the waste basket 
making eyes.

__________________

BULLET

I take my ticket stub for the train
from this short black lady with tight greasy ringlets
that look like how I imagine the human genome
would look if it were stricken with body lice
and scared of losing its job.

And the man in the window seat beside me
is an imbecile.
He reads the paper and believes it
as though he is reading
Dostoevsky.

Nods his head in affirmation
with a throaty: ah ha!
before each turn of the page.

The other man in front of me
keeps slamming his seatback into my knees.

Miss miss!
he waves,
my seat is broken.

Darwin wouldn’t have even let this one
onto the Galapagos to compete.

And the fields that speed by us
cannot be bothered to be fields.

Bodies of water, more of a pooling
than anything else.

When I disembark,
the rain is there to
meet me.

Red ticket stubs litter the platform
as the still-encumbered
wait for their bags.

LAUGHTER IS MEDICINE

She was the daughter of a celebrity
so everything was comped:
parking, dinner, drinks, friends,
party favours…

And when an interviewer asked her about
the meaning of life she laughed.

And I thought that was the greatest answer
she could have given.
   
Even it was barely audible.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HOW DO YOU TREAT YOUR WOOD?
—Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The lumber yard has much advice
on the matter.

So does Freud.

All I know
is that a little down time
never hurt anyone.

And that the many strippers
the hardware guy offers me
all come in a can
and look nothing 
like the strippers I used
to know.

__________________

Thank you, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, for your fine poetry this morning, and for rejoining us around the Kitchen table!

And don’t forget that Sacramento Poetry Center will feature the release of Levee Magazine’s first issue tonight, 7:30pm. Congratulations to Levee on its new enterprise! Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry—and the mighty railroad!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.