Featured Poet: Michael Flanagan

OBLIVIOUS

in her  business suit, in a bar
down near wall st., about eight
o’clock on a wednesday night,
bartender hands her the phone,
she talks into the receiver,
obviously speaking to a child:
honey, I am coming home. yes.
soon. yes honey, I promise.
she hands the receiver back
to the bartender. as he takes
it, she rolls her eyes, as if
acknowledging they are
comrades, two people who
understand the fight, how
hard it is when others want
something different than
your cause. smiling now,
she shakes the tumbler in
her hand and orders another
drink, oblivious once again
to all but the ice cubes at
the bottom of her glass.

NOW AND THEN

now and then in a car or pulling
out a chair while looking out the
front window I’ll feel a small
shining light bare itself
inside me

it’s soft

in the belly it raises some-
thing like beauty

it’s quiet too

it seems to come from very
far away

I don’t know exactly what it
is but I think it has something
to do with childhood

there’s always a sense of air and
sidewalks and sunshine and a friend
whose face I just can’t quite see

it comes suddenly and leaves
quickly

it’s wonderful

but I think if it stayed any
longer than the small piece
it does it would become
unbearable

POEM WRITTEN UPON MY DAUGHTER’S GRADUATION FROM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

she could be an actress on
broadway, land in the field
of molecular biology, search
out cures for terrible diseases,
maybe she will work as a
stringer for a newspaper, file
stories from war zones, maybe
she will photograph polar ice
caps on the bering sea, she will
not settle in this place, love here,
marry here, have two children,
two cats, a dog, a two story
house with a garage, she
will not join the p.t.a, or bake
brownies for cub scouts, she
must burn harder than that,
love much, lose much, fall
through a great city on her
knees, make great things
out of fear, out of longing,
she must find her work and
treat it like prayer, chase
one thing she cannot help
but cherish, darling, open
the world and drink from it,
or you will break my heart

CRUSH

twelve years old, standing in the
middle of the block, mary-beth
had a coat on but it was un-
zippered, david and I started to
run in circles around her, both
of us darting hands out, trying to
touch her breasts, we’d stop now
and then and the three of us would
talk and joke about other things,
then it would start again, at one
point, he and I dipped our hands
in muddy rainwater, we tried to
leave hand prints on her shirt, we
aimed as close to her breasts as we
could, laughing, we asked what
her father would think if he saw
that, she make an ugly face and
zippered her jacket, it had gotten
dark and the street lights had
come on, we didn’t know what
else to do so we stole her hat, we
took it into an alley, peed in it,
stuck wet leaves in it, smiling,
we brought it back to her, we
told her what we’d done but she
said she didn’t believe us, when
she grabbed the hat she realized
it was wet and flung it into some
bushes, after that we walked up
the street together, mary-beth
stationed between the two of us,
at the corner we leaned on the
wall of ted’s deli, watching
the traffic, we waited

Bio:

Michael A. Flanagan was born in the Bronx,
N.Y. and grew up in the New York Metropolitan area. Poems and stories of his
have appeared in many small press periodicals across the country. His first
chapbook, A Million Years Gone, is available from Nerve Cowboy’s Liquid Paper
Press. He can be reached by email. The address is: dfdandelion416@verizon.net