Author: Ryan Stone
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Red Wagon
I pulled my dog through summers,tongue lolling in the heat,ears twitching at beesand things only he could hear. The wagon rattled like laughterover cracked footpaths,and I—captain of that small red ship—knew no world beyondthe corner storeand the shade beneath our tree. It was enough. Now I carry more—keys, deadlines, debt,the ache of wantingwhat I used…
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Almost Eden
You knew.She knew.It was thick in the air —like rain that never falls. Her hand on the doorframe.Yours in your pocket,clenched around nothing. The storm had passed.But the heat hadn’t broken. She looked at youlike you were the answerto a question she wasn’t supposed to ask. And you looked at herlike a manmeasuring the cost…
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Letter to My Sons
Boys, When the fire comes—and it will—don’t run.Stand your ground. Feel the heat. Know what’s worth burning.Not everything you carry needs to be saved. You’ll be told to move fast, talk loud, win more.Don’t listen to that.The quiet men are the ones you want near when things fall apart. If your hands shake, that’s fine.So…
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Magpie Morning
Fifty soon.Strange how that numberfeels both heavier and lighterthan expected. I wake before the house stirs.Kettle on.Dogs at my heel—the old one careful on the tiles,the young one waiting for the daylike it might break open just for her. A magpie sings on the powerline,low and fluted—not calling,not warning—just there.Like me. The track behind is…
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The Weight of Lost Things
Set against the dry pulse of the Australian outback, these poems chart the fractured terrain of boyhood, brutality, young love, and the loyalty of dogs. Fathers vanish, mothers soften, dogs die, and the land never forgives. With language as lean as the paddocks it describes, this book explores what gets buried, what remains unspoken, and…
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you left before the bell
we were sixteen,all collarbones and restless hands,kicking gravel behind the bike shedslike we knew the world owed us somethingand we weren’t afraid to ask for it. your name lived in my throatfor years afterlike a word I never learned to sayout loud. we never got a proper ending—just a Tuesdayand a late noteand a suddensilence.…
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Coal Town
Birds don’t stop in this town. I see them fly past, black peppering blue, going someplace. I’ve given up dreaming wings. This town will know my bones. Condoms sell well in Joe’s corner store – boredom breeds but breeding’s a trap, a twitch in the smile of those steel-eyed shrews who linger late after church.…
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Unburied Hatchet
Until I saw those wasted hands, brittle as chalk, I hadn’t thought how fast the years make ghosts. I heard them once called brawler’s paws. For me, they were always more: cobras, poised to strike. But his brawling days are gone now; I could kill him with a pillow, if I cared enough to try.…
