Sep 24
Sex Shop Whips You should have seen the size of those suckers, they must have got a lot of lion tamers coming in. Deep down into the edible panty bowels of that basement sex shop. Run by large angry African transplants that cussed out the patrons for taking pictures. Pointing up to a sign over …
Sep 16
Facekini I was in this little corner convenience near Ossington Station when an ultra-skinny dude wearing a green facekini strutted in. I’m sure he thought it looked cool, that it was one of those Mexican wrestling masks or something. The guy behind the cash probably thought it was a hold-up, backing away from the register …
Sep 06
Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra Shoot At the Stars No couch could cushion our lives, and I think of Ava and Frank driving into the desert, restless as two honey badgers in spirited flirt. Under that big night sky of back talk spin, Frank grabbed his gun from the glove box and began shooting at …
Jul 11
Headed Up to Chapleau He said he was headed up to Chapleau next week to work on the roof of the new curling rink, the tonneau cover of his back half-box flipped up so the studs can hang over the back, secured and with an orange safety flag, “the coppers are really sticklers up north,” …
Jul 03
When the Pleasure Palace Shut Down for Repairs When the pleasure palace shut down for repairs there was nowhere to go, there was work, but no one wanted to go there, with that stupid nametag with your prison picture, not that you’d been to prison, but now you knew what you’d look like if you …
Jun 15
Nothing Else To Do On A Tuesday Night Got into the mushrooms again. Now, the flowers on the wallpaper are spinning. Like tiny galaxies to a pulse. As I sit on the toilet, crouched over in mesmerized hunch. Floating back from absentia like a trusted airman making for home. Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author …
Jun 07
Babies from a Candy I am sitting around listening to the blues with my wife. Both very drunk. When I tell her that something would be like taking babies from a candy. She pauses for a moment, then corrects me. “I thought I could let it go,” she smiles. “But I just can’t.” We both …
May 30
Diminishing Way It was never a cleansing rain, the mammoth clouds brought to dark extinctions, nothing breathed back into a former life, just wet against bone, really: eating through threadbare layers, awake with the dumpster diving coons, a concealed blade for when the shrill of the world came shrieking, the cap of the bottle loosened …
Feb 09
Satan’s Choice Drug Run We are driving through Blind River, on our way back from camp. Past the dragon boat races and that half-demented dentist who should have stopped pulling teeth over a decade ago. And looking to the nearest corner of the Tim Hortons parking lot, my wife and I both see them right …
Nov 14
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 …
