Clods of Mead for the Ancient Mind
The world is a small place
if you crawl back into the womb.
When I hold my hands out,
it is with a moderate disbelief more than faith.
Dirty dish water after the dinner hour rush.
Clods of mead for the ancient mind.
Movie theatres let out into the imaginary streets.
The inner harbour littered with Dostoevsky instead of ducks.
That way you park as silly and cumbersome as you laugh.
Everyone remembering your birthday, but none of your foibles.
That last time anyone said they loved you during orgasm
cannot be trusted, how to separate the dynamite
from the explosion –
and the specialists they call probably still fuck in cursive
which explains why all the innocence has been syphoned
off the guilty so painted nails can talk in code
during the witching hour.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author who lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as: The New York Quarterly, Red Fez, Evergreen Review, The Literary Underground, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Zygote in my Coffee, and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.
