Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 11/25/22

November 25, 2022 James D. Casey IV

Between Rounds

I staggered back to my corner between rounds.
The stool was already there.

He has no heart!
my corner said,
throwing water over my face.

Does the commission know that?
I asked.

Would you take this serious!
my corner yelled.

I winced as he took a Q-tip and pushed it against
a cut over my eye to soak up the blood.

His corner should take this serious,
they have a fighter with no heart,
I shot back.
Guess I won’t aim for the heart.

My corner said nothing.
Checking my nose to see if it was broken.

I’ll probably come back after the next round
and you’ll tell me he has no fists,
I smiled.
Then I’ll know you’re lying.

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, Cajun Mutt Press, Outlaw Poetry Network, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

His new nook, Victory Slab, is coming soon from Cajun Mutt Press!! Look for it on December 8th.

Victory Slab by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
cover art by J.D.C.IV

“Lay me out on the Victory Slab ‘cause the realm of poetry has been conquered again by RQF Flanagan bludgeons the perception of contemporary poetry with a sledgehammer to the chest shattering the sickening parade of: broken hearts, purposely unresolved trauma and snobbish elitism with a sledgehammer of truth…the hammer is still dirty though and…fun.”
—Mike Zone Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, Author of Fuck You: A Fucking Poetry Chap

“Victory Slab by Ryan Quinn Flanagan offers shoot-from-the-hip observations like an unfolding docudrama, part pulp fiction, part ripped-from-the-headlines, always grounded in visceral plainspoken reality. Hard-luck lessons elbowed out of the way by blind-lucky bastids, and many fraught moments brought to heel by earnest tenderness directed at real people by real people. Serious business. But this collection is also funny, in all senses, from ELL OH ELL to mere mild exhalations through the nose, as well as my favorite flavor: weird. The farted-upon couch. The dime store ronin. The flirty wafer-thin waitress making your wife jelly. “[R]oving blood goons with veiny neck effort / and pillows for fists.” These poems are nuts and you’ll love them for it.”
—Tony Brewer, author of psithurism and Pity for Sale

COVER REVEAL: Victory Slab by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

November 10, 2022 James D. Casey IV

!! COVER REVEAL !!

Victory Slab by Ryan Quinn Flanagan drops on December 8th!!! I’ll share the link once it goes live. Cover art by JDCIV, blurbs by Tony Brewer & Mike Zone!

“Lay me out on the Victory Slab ‘cause the realm of poetry has been conquered again by RQF Flanagan bludgeons the perception of contemporary poetry with a sledgehammer to the chest shattering the sickening parade of: broken hearts, purposely unresolved trauma and snobbish elitism with a sledgehammer of truth…the hammer is still dirty though and…fun.”
—Mike Zone Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, Author of Fuck You: A Fucking Poetry Chap

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 03/02/22

March 2, 2022 James D. Casey IV

Jesus Freak

She got me at my most vulnerable.
Five years older and rocking the cradle.

This Jesus freak living in Letitia Heights.
And she broke me down and strung me along.

Stole money from me when I had nothing.
Living it up while I slept on the street.
During the cold Canadian winter.
Digging latrines with my bare hands
in the permafrost of the forest.

And later, after an aunt and uncle took me in.
Demanding celibacy because of her religion.
Eventually cheating on me so the humiliation
was complete.

And when that wasn’t enough,
she burned the only pictures of me as a baby
which I had been young and dumb
enough to give her to hold onto.

It wasn’t enough to just humiliate me.
She had to destroy any record of my existence
at all with the burning of those pictures.

She had to rub me out completely.
This good god-fearing creature.

Sitting in church service each Sunday.
With hands on lap.

But she failed as they always do.
I did not die or kill myself,
although I came close.

And now, there is only this poem.
Written about her and never for her.
She has already taken enough.