Working On Those Popeyes

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

—Anonymous Photos (and no, this is not Ryan...)

SILLY POPEYE ARMS

It is winter in the arctic north.
I am shovelling almost every other day.
Plugging the truck into the house
so it will start in the morning.

And the snow just keeps piling up.
No need for gym pass.
I have these silly Popeye arms
from taking my shovel
and building 12-ft. walls of snow.

And ramming an ice breaker into the end of the drive.
Slamming it down into a glacier of ice for
almost an hour trying to keep the path open.

And when she gets home,
she compliments my efforts.
Knows the fingers at the end of these arms
are built on endurance.

Which women love
more than anything else.

Lasting power
and all those silly Popeye
muscles which they squeeze
in horny disbelief

while you
sleep.

UMBRELLA

Sentimentality,
how nice,
an umbrella should be there
to catch the rain

or that storefront awning
you crowd under
sharing an awkward
laugh

everyone checking their phones
pretending to be somewhere
else

but there is always a talker
in the bunch

it’s verbal torture
until a few just run out
deciding to brave
the rains

and the ones left behind
are jealous
but they are cowards

so they stand still as statues
hoping everyone will forget they
are even there.

TOTEM PHASE

Things realized, I need a trophy.
Something to hold over my head
like raising my arms
from the dead.

Trophies with the small plastic likeness
of a baseball player at bat
or some other stupid rendering
that helps you return

over and over
again.

To that time
when you were
on top.

Of course it’s ego.
Show me a single human
being that doesn’t
have it.

Even in some small measure.

You should see all my trophies.
I was really good at sports
when I was
young.

THE POACHER

sits
in the tall grass
for a long
time

playing with the scope

until everything
is right

taking the shot
when he
has it

before posing
for pictures

with the
kill.

WHAT THE THEATER SAYS ABOUT STAGES

You knew Ibsen was coming from the left
of everything
and still the many right-handers all
lined up
with ticket in wrong hand
screaming their seats back to life

Tennessee Williams
in love with his own sister
but no one seemed to care
as long as there were streetcars
to catch and places to go

Harold Pinter pissing everyone off
with his conscientious Hackney objections,
hiding his Hothouse in a tiny desk of absurdism
for 22 years

the many rootless characters of Sam Shepard
like rotten vegetables torn from a
screaming garden

Strindberg always making everything so personal,
the firing squads of Europe could never understand that

Dumas with that absurdly fat face
and ridiculous crumpled
bow tie

lose the scarf, Genet,
we can’t see your heaving barrel chest
from the balcony

Comrade Brecht,
I guess the revolution
has to start somewhere
and the playwright
too

Chekhov waiting in the wings
of flightless birds

George Bernard Shaw
losing the George
to a basket of props

all those masks and gestures and lines
each night
   
cues and lighting and Xs taped to the creaky 
stage floor so transformation knows
where to begin

and the critics, don’t forget them,
always bringing old age
to the baby shower.

SINGLE BLUE MILK CRATE

We started so early
the sun was still and hour away
and they made me sit on this single
blue milk crate in the back of the
work van that threw me around
with each sharp turn because
they wouldn’t slow down and needed
to have their fun and at the end of the day 
I would wind all the muddy power cords
around my arms and climb into the back
of the van with them, trying to hold the
bottom of the blue milk crate still
with my hands as my tired bones were
tossed around the back of the van
all over again.

CAR IN THE DITCH OUTSIDE THESSALON

We are driving back in from the border.
There is a car in the ditch outside Thessalon.
A body still inside.
No one appears to be injured.

The police are on the scene.
One cruiser pulled over onto the shoulder
with its lights flashing.

There is a light snow.
Nothing serious

How did the car get into the ditch?
I ask my wife.

I don’t know,
she says.

Look, the snowbank is perfectly intact.
It should be run through with tracks
or some impact but there is nothing.

Just the car in the ditch.
And no other sign that it went
off the road at all.
   
I’ve never seen that before,
says my wife.

Me neither,
I say.

It’s very strange.

Later outside Blind River
we get stuck behind the
road salter.

We are very tired from driving.
Down to one lane.
Brought to a crawl.

Watching the salty pebbles bounce up
off the pavement.

Animal tracks in the snow
from the night before.

Still an hour from home.
A Conga line of cars behind us.
Twenty deep or more.

The radio turned off with impatience.
Crawling along in silence.

Two chips in the windshield
on the driver’s side.

________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ACTIVITY
—Ryan Quinn Flanagan


Brain activity

hyperactivity

learn an activity

suspicious activity

paranormal activity

seismic activity

gang activity

physical activity

finish an activity
like this.

________________________

Many, many thanks to Ryan Flanagan for his poems, including today’s taste of snow and the hard work it takes to live in it.

Don’t forget tonight’s MarieWriters Workshop at Sac. Poetry Center, 6-8pm, facilitated this week by Christin O’Cuddehy. 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
 

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