Just Another Kid From The Neighborhood, an E-book of poems by John Michael Flynn

 

Just Another Kid From The Neighborhood

The poems in this book seek to define identity and the sometimes elusive echoes of the past that we live with and often don't comprehend. 

Thank you to Matt Kelly for the cover photograph, and to Erica Hollen for the design. 

You can find it here at Barnes and Noble UK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/just-another-kid-from-the-neighborhood-john-michael-flynn/1144506330 

And here at OverDrive: https://www.overdrive.com/publishers/john-michael-flynn

And here at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1148175

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These poems appeared in slightly different forms in the following publications:

Blue Darkens Down Carter Mountain, In Crozet Late One Afternoon, After Sunday Dinner, That Rocker Was Her Second Church, Virginia Road in Piedmont Journal

George Bacovia On A Saturday In October in Four Ties Review

cruise-circuit soleil, fall against the air in pidgeonholes

Inevitable Size in Calliope

Ruts Of Empire in The Broken Plate

The Girl In Jeans And Waffle-Soled Boots, Another Day Falls Like A Gist Headed For A Purple Sedan in I-70 Review

At Last I, You in Lunaris Review

After Re-Reading Corso’s Bomb Outside Of Santa Fe, Hallucination Trains in Gyroscope Review,

Homage To An Avuncular Neighbor, Pumpkin Breath in Foxglove Journal.

HERE ARE TWO SAMPLE POEMS FROM THE COLLECTION

Lawns Mirror Rendered Sky Frescos

Inside the green uranium glass of a suburb

though not optimistic

about another set of volcanic possibilities

 I sell myself to eternity

while panting on pause

 amidst identically mannered houses.

 Stay open, allow shows of gratitude and piety.

Row your skiff through the diurnal

try to be better.

 

I resume jogging off the foam sweating down my calves,

shampoo’s lemony scent coming on

released from my hair like its an old opened purse.

            Having slaughtered many an ambition

arrangement and afterglow

I have come to realize there is no lawful one moment.

 

There are statements. Glimpses into epiphanies.

I must continue.

I will do so.

Five words in my head know me

only too well:

Perhaps today will be different.

 ***

Angelica Speaks Of Another Patient Dying

 

Not flesh nor her eyes

can spark to heal them

whether stroke victims

a suicidal depressive

or addicts.

Her cause

neither code nor treasure

nor to start another war

remains supporting our mystery.

 

I think of each death she’s seen

each disguise worn in order to confront it,

leaving her naked enough

to be more than vulnerable,

yet her arms are still willing to hold the infirm

tapered and trained like missiles –

her courage relentless.

 

What’s next for me to do

as her husband at dinner

is not to ask any more questions.

    By the oath of Hippocrates

she wasn’t even supposed to tell me this.

            Better she ask herself later on in the dark

thinking by compass light or solemn commitment

what not to be now, how not to move on.

 

If there exists larger manna for those who tend the infirm

may she and her co-workers find and bathe in it.

She breathes this day, this death

all night long.

 Their lives need an outside effort –

                        neither has an end.