The Blue of Every Flame

by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Tweekers in car parks

jack cars for a fix

while muggers lay in wait

for first dates

and the Bowery drunks

stumble out into traffic

giving Happy Hour legs.

The black eyed susan across the hall

started tricking again

and now her old man

is back downtown

for assault and battery

while I sit half mad

on a bed full of empty Vodka minis

rubbing magazine cologne samples

all over my chest

and dancing in front of the vanity

like some dime store whirling dervish

as the roaches scurry

the neon hums

and the serviced johns in the stairwell

moan through paper thin walls.

All around me,

the world is alive

and I

am the mad manic heart

of the universe.

The blue of every flame.