Two Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Extras

 

They were filming 

a new movie in town 

and they asked for a few hundred

extras to pretend they were dying

and she said we should go downtown

and see if we could get into the movie,

with that big name actor who bathed in horse piss

and made up his own religion,

but I only wanted to be me and alive, and I knew no one

wanted that, they never had.

 

She tells people she made it into the movie,

even though you never see her.

She accused me of that very same thing for

all the time we were together,

not “seeing her.”

 

I guess it was fine when the big 

movie houses did it.

 

 

When Lovers Become Informants 

 

Sharing all those nights together.

Sitting up in bed, telling secrets.

 

Then the turn comes.

Often without notice.

 

They shoot back out into the world.

Tell everyone they know

everything they know.

 

The things that are certain 

to hurt the most.

 

As though

there was never any love 

to begin with.

Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.  He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.