Two Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Rolling Antoinette Heads like Hub Caps in the Street

Just wait until they start chopping off heads again
dying breaths
like bags or plastic
in the grocery store checkout
line.

Make any animal desperate
and it returns
to survival.

Civility
is a mask
children wear
every Halloween
to clean up
on candy.

I watch the rolling Antoinette heads
like hub caps in the street.

Six million dead
in the ovens
instead of
pizza.

Like the side mirror
on every vehicle
warns:
objects are closer
than they
appear.



The Price

Thumb wars
are better than
real wars,
but no less
numerous.

Disagreement happens
over the placement
of a placemat.

Let the tree huggers
hug
and the Greenpeacers
peace.

As long as there are human beings
on this planet
with pants that make them
look fat
there will be other human beings
that have to pay
for that.