Brian Jones Died in Winnie the Pooh’s Swimming Pool

A.A. Milne was the home’s previous owner, 
best known as the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, 
and then Brain moved in soon after his split from the Stones, 
started drinking heavily and fighting with the builders 
he had hired so that Brian Jones died in Winnie-the-Pooh’s 
swimming pool after the job foreman held him underwater 
just long enough that there was no longer any argument 
over shoddy construction or monies owed 
to Mick or Keith or Piglet  
or anyone else. 

Munitions

Half a dozen ratty kids in tatters  
tossing off-coloured bricks at one another.  

Old faces, even for the kiddies.  
Scarred with slanderous tongues.  

The bigger ones atop pyramids of rubble  
while the smaller ones duck  
and throw a few bricks back feebly.  

A derelict munitions factory    
with much of the old line work   
still in place.  

The children all at war  
as they wait their turn.  

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Fixator Press, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Somewhere Else

I live more than one life.
I know I am just one person.
It is a proven fact I can be
in more than one place at
once or do you think I am mad?

I have traveling souls and
I know so do you. I want you
to believe that we exist, you
and I, and them, our souls.

The traveling souls make
their way north and south. I
do not dispute this. Try to
ignore them, but there is
nothing you can say to change
my mind. I am somewhere else.

The Wild Side 

Take a walk,
the wild side
will follow

in these streets
where shadows
become real.

Take a walk.
Be happy
when you are

home in one
piece because
some people

do not make
it back home
like they should.

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His latest poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press. His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Pygmy Forest Press, and Unlikely Stones.

latchy king boat (a hand in the water)

brain in the box to go
the kingship watkins

the young mustard
the croaking lemur

in the salad eye
let me be the world

when you do, you don’t
a series of wet napkins

the night of the walking nothing

the spider waits for the spider-man to run thru the sandwich hall

a concord of the smith to share a sainted hello
that meatloaf is the pen of the pocket

            that languishing frost
            that lemon squint

the clay of the mortal robe
the pucker of the small earth

language is the paper of the wolf in the tree