Ryan Quinn Flanagan Rattles the Truncheons in Bloodshot Gangsta Rap Arthritic Frazzled Rain as the Naked Woman Lingers

Carpenter Bees in the Deck Wood Starting Over  

atmospherics
the pulsing drill bit man
riot police forming lines like ants to sugar
and volleys of tear gas, the outdoorsman’s fog machine,
truncheons knocked against shields in rhythmic violence
store awnings protruding like the entrepreneur’s hanging blue foreskin
little men in barbershop chairs getting the forest of their hair cut away
straight razors across the face in cold metallic precision
I love this land, not out of some waving idiot patriotism
but because the sand between my toes is grainy
and tangible
the grass blades sharper then glass refusing to harm you
green knives like walking across a bed of nails
the sprinkler wet laughter of hurried children
carpenter bees in the deck wood starting over
and this is the moment you choose
to come to me with your plan,
the whites of your eyes
murder-for-hire bloodshot
with effort.
 
Straight Outta Compton, Straight into Soaker Tubs

What to make of gangsta rap
at fifty?

Everyone in mansions
in the Hollywood Hills
with someone to do their shopping
and someone to do their thinking
and $10 000 poodles
named after obscure
French butlers.

The prenup long
signed.

Arthritis
now the largest
concern.

And property tax, of course,
that shit keeps going up
each year.
 
New Digs

I like the new neighbourhood.
Nary a dull moment.

There’s the electrician in his van taking pictures of small children
and many dogs in traffic
and the crack whores falling out of the crack house
one after the other like frazzled rain…

Hell, just the other day a man ran down the street.
He was completely naked.
Then a woman ran past after him.
She was naked as well.

I took a long swig of beer
and watched.

I guess it’s true what they say;
behind every naked man
there’s a naked
woman.

Though anatomically speaking
you imagine it the other way
around…

I watched them round the bend in the road
until I could not see them anymore.

Then I went back inside
and let a chair sit on me
for a change.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Changming Yuan Among Beijing Willows, Unpolluted Night, Dusty Pasts, Snags and Wounded Crows

As Plants Grow around Us

As more plants grow around us, they will 
Show what we cannot show ourselves

A blade of grass that has been trodden many 
Times still continues to hold a dew at dawn

A Huyang tree manages to stand long after it dies
And never gets rotten even longer after its fall

A Beijing willow is always ready to bend in grace
To hold winds with its arms, despite its naked scars

A rotten snag with a new twig 
Growing against all the broken rings 

Tender Was Once the Night

How fondly you often miss, recollecting 
The shredded darkness of a primitive night
Like your native village (or first love)
So pure-hearted, full of natural charm
Without being disturbed by wood fire
Candle light, let alone electric shine
When fireflies had fun above
The thick bushes, where primroses
Bloomed towards a meditating owl 

O for an unpolluted night! And let trees
And flowers have a sound sleep 

Once Picking up a Powerful Country 
This Little Poem of Mine Goes Right

Only recently did I become alert to how
I resemble uncle Sam. They – it? – don’t 
Like China. I don’t like China either 
(Though not for the same reasons.) They try
To reap cash in all prospering economies; I 
Try to gather every penny from the corner
Wherever I can see and lay my humble hands
They hold high their banners of democracy
And human rights; I like my rights and detest  
Dictatorship (though perhaps for different 
Purposes.) In particular, they enjoy bullying
The weak, dodging the strong, disturbing
Waters to fish and using dirty tricks to keep
All others down; I am ready to say foul words
To do whatever possible to rise above myself
In this harshest human condition, although I 
Was not born to be a villain. The only difference
Lies in the degree to which I am selfish, villainous
Hypercritic, and they--it? -- are way more so

Getting Ready: for Liu Yu 

Lastly, remember to burn this box with me, Son
It contains all my most precious pictures, letters
Certificates, awards, notebooks, manuscripts
Which do not sell anyway. As for my clothing
And furniture, I have donated them all shortly after
Your dad was gone. Help me to mop the floor and
The dusty versions of my pasts, sunbathe my quilts
As well as the one extra set of clothes which have
Covered my inner and outer being for the last ten
Years. Now I finally have everyone to think of
In light of light that illuminates the darkest composite of 
My consciousness. The departure is due soon, and I am
Fully prepared to set off on this final trip. As you know
I really hated it when we threw all your father’s 
Belongings, soft or hard, away as garbage the other day 

Drowning

It’s like a snag in the Yangtse River
Being pushed towards me
By an indifferent wave

While struggling in the water
I flapped my arms high 
Only to see it drifting around
About a yard away

Sitting on the snag is a wounded crow
With eyes widely open
As if to appreciate my last dance 

Like a thought, sinking slowly 
To the bottom of my being 


Changming Yuan, nine-time Pushcart and one-time Best of the Net nominee, started to learn English at age 19 and published monographs on translation before moving out of China. Currently, Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1249 others worldwide. See more at:
poetrypacific.blogspot.ca
http://poetrypacificpress.blogspot.ca/

Catherine Zickgraf Screams Every Time She Gets Ready For Church

Pills Don’t Hurtle Drawers/Roll Away

You are broomlike, stablest on your head, 

all toe hair and sawed nails, sold broken, 

an unarithmic puzzle, reasonless, lacking 

panic at your betrayal, a porcelain stomach 

spinning waves, an addict’s raw lips, ooze-

dripping veins like peeled plantains, antiqued 

in a sealed store front—oh, thinned liar, 

skinned open.

You are yourself alone, the lover you fondle, 

not cheek against untweeding cushions in 

some traphouse, squeezed instead between 

your own soul and my own sofa where you’ve

crashed, a houseguest where you found my

medicine you stole.  

Hotel

I don’t mind your ex-wife stretched out in your penthouse

or your girlfriend’s speakers in the suite down the hall—

as long as I can settle my cheek in your chest 

on a tiny cot closeted under your stairs.  

Hiding under the Bathroom Sink

I slid in through the under-sink door.  

There, behind the Lysol, were the crackers 

I hid the week before since I knew when they 

pounded the floor chasing their insolent child, 

I’d want to be safely gone. 

They searched the place out, 

looking under the beds—

then realized I could be headed to the creek.  

They swept the place out, 

scanning all the corners, 

like a matriarch scrubbing out her household’s sin—

then realized I could be past the creek 

and deep in the trails, out of reach.

But I was nine and hiding under a sink, 

blue smocked dress crushed in with the darkness, 

legs bent up, my head on my knees, 

and I really had to go to the bathroom.

In there in white tights and only one shoe—

a rubber-soled brown, strap buckling the foot.  

It frustrated my folks and slowed us down 

that the other one was simply gone.

So much screaming while getting ready for church.  

Scary words while getting ready for church.  

They looked for me till I chose to emerge 

and then didn't even try to make it to church 

that Sunday I’d prepared for the week before. 

Catherine Zickgraf has performed her poetry in Madrid, San Juan, and three dozen other cities, but now her main jobs are to hang out with her family and write poetry. Her work has appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association, Pank, Victorian Violet Press, and The Grief Diaries. Her new chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Aldrich Press and is available on Amazon.com. 

Read more and watch more of her poetry at http://caththegreat.blogspot.com

Joe Balaz With Aiplane Emogi Kabooms Pandas in Moa and Moa Revelations as Jive Scammers are like Sharks Under the Surface

HAPPY EMOJI IN DA DEEP FREEZE 

Happy emoji                                                                                                                                   stay in da deep freeze.
                                                                                                                                                        No moa confetti                                                                                                                                no moa champagne
no moa flying through da clouds                                                                                                    on wun carefree airplane.
                                                                                                                                                        Da engine stay all broke                                                                                                                  and no can achieve anykine lift
sitting on da runway in da dark                                                                                                     like wun dead pigeon in da park.
                                                                                                                                                    Doom and gloom                                                                                                                           wit wun big kaboom
dat no one else can hear
as dat insidious blues ting                                                                                                                                      wit da sad mood dat it brings
takes you down inside da mind’s ear.

No moa pretty colors                                                                                                                       no moa dancing bear in wun tutu
no moa radiant neon news                                                                                                            from wun cheerful laughing clown—
No wondah whiskey goes down so easy.
                                                                                                                                                      Dats why                                                                                                                                      moa bettah just lay low
while everyting is all no go
cause happy emoji                                                                                                                        stay in da deep freeze
like wun big tuna                                                                                                                             all stiff on da ice.


BAMBOO HARVESTER


                                                                                                                                                Bamboo Harvester
wuzn’t wun panda in China

or wun man in da Philippines

cutting stalks
to make wun house.


Growing in popularity
instead of growing in da jungle

he wuz certainly good
at creating wun splash

cause you can get
pretty well known

wen you make people laugh.


He wuz silly
and outrageous

and you knew him
wen he became famous

wit his big eyes
looking at you.


Funny hay and wild oats
wit wun occasional crazy apple

helped to feed da absurdity.


Just like Lady Gaga
and Bruno Mars

his name wuz changed too
so he could be moa cool.


Ask his friend Wilbur
cause he knows all about it.

Mister revelation
going give you Ed in da shed.


A horse is a horse
of course, of course—


You can now start singing                                                                                                               da  program’s catchy song

anytime you like.




BITE DA HEART OF DA ANGLER                                                      
                                                                                                                   
You gaddah stay alert in dis town
cause everybody                                                                                                                               is eidah trying to con you
or dey going take advantage                                                                                                             of any misstep.
                                                                                                                                                       It’s twenty-four-seven                                                                                                                    and crazy eight swings
every day of da week.
                                                                                                                                                        So heah comes                                                                                                                          anadah round of jive scammers
each of dem casting me wun pitch
and tinking                                                                                                                                      dat dey going reel me in
to flap helplessly at dere feet.
                                                                                                                                                        Da invisible hook is plain to see
and I going tactfully spit it into dere faces                                                                                before I draw blood
cause my fins glide                                                                                                                  through da watah
and undah da surface                                                                                                                      you no can see my teeth.
                                                                                                                                                   Sharks no take da snagging bait—
Dey just bite da heart of da angler.    


Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English) and in American-English. He edited Ho'omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature.  Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Rattle, Juked, and Unlikely Stories Mark V, among others. Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature.  He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.