Nightmare Scenarios for the Lonely Dreamcatcher

peering over embankments
with sugar refinery eyes
salamanders for walls giving you
the crawl about
and three lamps standing in a room
where dust has gathered like an angry mob
to take your goodies away
torches raised high like arms on fire
slogans because they are easy
and the boys on bikes have grown up
with the chain
fumbled with the grease of
slippery days

when you find me
know that I have never known
myself

behind tinted windows
the motorcade rolls
on.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Literary Yard, and The Oklahoma Review.