Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Merry Christmas From The Electronic Warfare Unit

It was our first winter in Kingston.
An army town known for its Military College
and prisons.

And we stopped to watch the annual Santa Claus Parade.
People gathered along both sides of Princess Street
in a blustery winter storm to watch the procession.

Dominated by this giant float with a tank
and black artillery guns mounted on it.

A large banner along the side of the float
which read: Merry Christmas From The Electronic Warfare Unit.

In those big bold letters that let you know who was boss.
I don’t remember Santa, but he must have been there.

Flipping baton cheers squads
and reformed prisoners dressed as elves.

It was good to see that everyone was in the holiday spirit.
The soldiers handing out candy canes to the many 
hoisted invasion plan children that lined the street.

The Junkie

Park benches don’t die on themselves,
and I see the junkie keeled over on crooked dogma lean.
Sporting the Salvation Army Fall line.

Body lice through all the fraying layers.
Probably 20 years younger than he looks.

Hunched so far over that his head is almost between his legs.
A long line of drool hanging down in stalactite fixture.
Bulbous snot beads with the tails of thoughtless comets.
Internal medicine brought outdoors.

The control group come undone.
The handsome fine world gone wrong.

Everyone and their janitor trying to get clean
these days, it seems.

But the junkie is broken, a true stoic.
More statue than man; it is that kind of stillness.

Deserted statue, without any of the commemoration.
Bird shit over a child’s dispirited playground slide.

No wonder he’s in a park.

 

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, Evergreen Review, Cultural Weekly, Monterey Poetry Review, River Dog and Horror Sleaze Trash. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.