The Gorko Gazette

Daily Humor

thegorkogazette

10.1.2026 6:45 AM

2 poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Grilled Cobra & A Glass of White Wine

Now, that’s one hell of a favourite meal!
Really puts my nacho platter to shame.

The wine had to be chilled, that was Pol Pot’s
culinary go-to. Imagine eating fucking cobras every
night for dinner, that alone will get you some sort
of reputation.

To give you perspective, Mussolini loved garlic.
Rather pedestrian, don’t you think?
Who doesn’t love garlic?
Both preventative medicine and flavour
enhancer galore.

But let’s be honest, garlic just doesn’t have
the same pizzazz as cobras for dinner.

That’s game, set, match
for the king of the killing fields.

Parking Pass

I was walking up King Street
when I saw this old timer
in a wheelchair,
scraggly beard of spittle,
yelling at these two cops
towering over him.

As I got closer,
I heard the cops say:
‘You can’t be here, sir.’

‘I got my parking pass,’
the old timer spun a quick wheelie
in his chair.

Turning his head both ways
so the cops could see.
‘I got two passes, one for each ear.’

Sure enough,
there were two parking passes
dangling from his ears.

‘Where’d you get those parking passes?’
the officers asked.

‘Where’d you get that badge?’
the old timer shot back.

I was soon out of earshot.
As the monstrous midday city
swallowed us whole.

About the artist

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, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Fixator Press and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.