Francis Flavin

Francis Flavin draws upon his experience as an educator, public interest lawyer and observer on four continents. He was the Winner of the 2021 Poetry Quarterly Rebecca Lard Award. In the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, Flavin placed first in the Memoir/Vignette category (2022), and in prior years received recognition for humor and flash fiction (2), short story (2), novel excerpt (3), creative nonfiction and personal essay categories. He also received recognition in the social impact category of the Chicagoland Poetry Contest, the Partisan Press Working People’s Poetry Competition (first place) and the personal essay and rhymed poetry categories of the 2020 Writer’s Digest awards. His work has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Moonstone Arts Center, NOVUS Literary Journal, Inwood Indiana, Blueline, Pacific Review, Beyond Words – International Literary Magazine, Vallum: Contemporary Poetry, Blue Collar Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Three Line Poetry, The Closed Eye Open and Tempered Runes, among others.

“Fireweed in Autumn,” “Night Falls,” an “High Desert Nightfall”

A sentinel for three seasons,
The fireweed stands unsteady
In the freshening breeze.

A phoenix of the scorched earth,
Its seeds break out in gossamer clouds,
Seeking newly ravaged lands to restore.

The Outcast Land

The old pickup sped through the night like a spaceship in the void. The only contact with reality was the faint whir of studs on frozen asphalt. Lake felt disembodied — a vagrant thought alone in the dark. He loved night travel when reality only occasionally interposed in the form of a long-haul trucker or startled moose.
The truck veered toward the shoulder as he passed through a dense bank of wind-swept snow.
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