days of stone

Poetry

  • Show Me

    Show Me

    Show me your words, not your body…

  • What I Learned Today

    What I Learned Today

    After the funeral I drove home slow, windows down, air sharp…

  • Let Me Be the Wind

    Let Me Be the Wind

    Don’t ask me to be soft, if what you mean is small.

  • Roadside Wheat

    Roadside Wheat

    Dry wheat at the edge of the road, stems clacking in the late heat.

  • Minor Extinctions

    Minor Extinctions

    At fifty-one I am mostly sediment, with a thin layer of optimism still visible near the surface…

  • Hollow

    Hollow

    A cicada husk clings to the gum, legs locked body gone…

  • Dust Me In Cinnamon

  • Exuvia

  • Last Flight

    The slender-billed curlew has officially been declared extinct by the IUCN — the first bird in history to vanish across three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. Once a graceful traveller between seasons, it’s now a silence stretching from marsh to sky. Some songs end where the wind begins.

  • She

  • My Own Skin

  • Crows in the Wheat

  • Storm Warning

  • Unbuttoned

  • Persimmon Moon

    The persimmon moon climbs slow, sweet with fire…A small poem of autumn stillness, where even the breath waits.

  • Flowers, Roadside

  • Paper Wings

  • Infinite

  • Atlas Moth

  • At the Treeline

  • Her voice

  • Ebony Blade

  • She-Wolf

  • The Masks We Wear

  • I Failed English but I Know This is True

    From my collection Poetry For People Who Hate Poetry, available from Amazon.

  • On the Wind

  • The Widowed Swan

  • Where You Stood

  • Firefly

  • One-Day Wings

  • The Lesson in His Fist

  • Walking Bare

    I wasn’t madefor straight roads.My bones rememberbare earth,the breath beforethe leap. We walk stiff now—feet wrapped in slaughterand stolen skin.Even the groundpulls away. But some nightswhen the house forgetsto hum,I move softer— past walls,past memory,into a placewhere treesstill whisper. And for a moment,I sense them—my fur and blood,the wild hunt.In the back of my throata…

  • Rescue & Ruin

  • The Magpie’s Warning

    Her songdraws a line in the air—a black note on blue,sharp as her eyesand just as clear. The dog halts.The wind shifts.Even the treeslean back a little. She’s not angry.Just sure.This stretch of fence,this slice of sky,the nest wedgedin that forked branch—all of it matters. She’s known loss.You can hear itin the edge of her…

  • To the Man I Might’ve Been

    You never made it out of the early days.I see your face sometimes in the mirror—same jaw,but your eyes aren’t tired yet. You had plans.Straight lines and clean hands.You really thought grit alone would get you through.I admire that.Even now. There were forks you didn’t see,roads I walked instead.Some of them cost more than they…

  • Night Rain, Bamboo

  • Willow and Ash

  • Sky Burial

    Sky burial is a sacred Tibetan ritual where the body is returned to nature, offered to birds of prey as an act of release and renewal. They say it frees the soul. But grief isn’t so easily lifted.

  • Boat Unmoored

  • River Stone

  • Eclipse

    From my new poetry collection Small Rituals. Available on Amazon – Books via this link Free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers

  • Shadowfall

  • Infinity

  • Coming Down

  • Weight

  • lover

  • Grey Shore

  • for all the fathers who show up

  • Baram (wind)

  • First Snow, Seollal

  • Burn Mark

  • Ghost Print

  • What Stays

    The house didn’t fallwhen they left.The kettle still boils,the dog still waitsfor your voice in the morning. Time to forgetthe way you bent to fitwhat was never built for you. The sky hasn’t stoppedits slow turning.Magpies still sing.You breathe.Something holds. This isn’t the end.It never is.The right onewon’t ask you to shrink.What stayswill staywithout being…

  • Sin Town

    It only exists when the sun goes downand the signs flicker to life—neon lips, dice rolling, Girls Girls Girlsgyrate in pulsing pink. The gutters gleam,slick with rain or something worse.The footpaths hum with heels and hunger. No one’s from here.Everyone’s just passing through—folded cash, fake names and bad habits.Cabbies don’t question—they know where to stop,won’t…

  • Obon Rain

    for the ones who still wait The rain begins slowly—drummingon stone markers. I light a stick of incense.It curlslike something trying to stay. Even the cicadashave fallen quiet. A child’s sandaldriftsdown the flooded path. Ryan Stone

  • Kintsugi Morning

    The bowl is still cracked,but gold glintsin early light. Steam from the tearises—a soft unravelling. Outside, the plum treeshakes offa single blossom. You are nowhere,and stillI pour two cups. Ryan Stone

  • She Named the Stars Out Loud

    We pulled off somewherepast the edge of signal,dust curling like smokebehind the tyres. She climbed the bonnet barefoot,leaned back with a bottle of waterand a grinlike she’d stolen it from a god. Said she used to bean astrologer.Said Orion was her first crushand she still wrote him letterswhen it rained. I told her I didn’t…

  • They Meet There, Still They Meet

    They meet there, still they meet,Where sand gives way beneath bare feet;No words are said, no vows are sworn,Just lips that know what silence mourns—They meet there, still they meet. The moon bends low to kiss the wheat,The stars hang close, the air smells sweet;He brushes leaves from tangled hair,She laughs as if no one’s…

  • Daisy

    It had no rightto be growing there—in the cracked seambetween the house and the path,where runoff pooledand the dog pissedand nothing green should last. But there it was.One daisy.Tilting toward the heatlike it believedin something. Not bloomingexactly,just holding on,a yellow eyein a worldthat never looked back. I could’ve crushed iton the way to the bin.I…

  • Choke Town

    The butcher’s sign still swings,though the shop’s been guttedsince Gaz ran a hose from the tailpipeand left the lights on. The school gate’s rusted open.Wind sifts chalk dustthrough cracked windowswhere names once lined the rolllike prayers in hell. Down at the silo,kids mainline in the shadowof grain that never came.One girl carved a starinto her…

  • After the Rain

    some daysgetting up is enough.feet on cold tiles,kettle humming,a clean shirt pulled over last night’s ache. you don’t have to shine.not today.just breathe.just be. let the storm pass without explanation.let the sky rinse itself clean. there’s no deadlinefor feeling okay,only weather,moving through. and when it does,when the clouds crack openand a thread of light finds…

  • Still Here

    Some daysthe light forgets your name.Doesn’t meanit’s gone for good. Even the suntakes timeto climb the sky. You don’t have to rise fast.You don’t have to smile.You just have to stay,breathe once,then once again. There’s no prizefor pretending.But there is gracein holding onwhen everything says let go. You are still here.And that means:you are strong…

  • You Are Enough

    Not the loudest,not the first to arriveor last to leave.You are the steady warmthbetween seasons,the breath that doesn’t need to be noticedto keep the body whole. You are the chair pulled close,the cup filled without asking,the hand that doesn’t flinch. You carry no banners.You don’t demand. And still,you hold up the skyfor someone. That is…

  • All the Birds are Gone

    The sky doesn’t hum like it used to.We traded songsfor signal towersand forgot the soundof wings over wheat. Benches sit emptyin parks built for someone else’s childhood.Swings move only with the wind now,no laughter to push them. We speak in pingsand half-hearted hearts,thumb-pressed loveand silence that scrolls onlonger than grief. We taught our childrento fear…

  • Shaping a Poem

    It’s a quiet thing, a word foundin the stillness of dawnwhile dreamers slumberand the new moon succumbsto day. A fading thought,soft intake of breathin the long pause between sleep and wake.Sometimes it’s hopeenduring wildfire, flood,or the dusts of time.Maybe dinosaur bones,a lost tomb, or scarecrowsguarding lavender fields. Perhaps a dew-drizzledcobweb, a jonquil, cloudor song. Most…

  • Enough

    I don’t need the crowdor the chorus—just one. One pair of eyesthat doesn’t flinchat the worst of me.One heartthat nodsat my silenceand still hears it all. If I am knownby even one soulwithout needing to explain, that is enough.That is everything. Ryan Stone

  • Red Shack Triptych

    I. Red Shack, White Silence (His Voice — Then) We climbed past where the trees give up,boots sinking through hush and drift,wind at our backs like a warningwe chose not to hear.The red shack waited—tilted, rust-kissed,half-swallowed by snow. Inside,a match struck light against the cold.One flame,then another,until the dark softenedjust enough to hold us. There…

  • Daughter of the Plains

    Daughter of the Plains

    Ochre soaked skies, sunrise woke her – blue grass seas lilt behind stained glass at dawn. On morning’s grace she’s borne. Ryan Stone

  • From the Sidelines

    From the Sidelines

    Do you know how it feels to stand alone in a forest in the caesura of a gathering storm? With a graceful pirouette the north wind about-faces and just as quickly a sou’ wester replaces the breathy, dry kisses of long afternoons in the sun. Drawing breath from your lungs and heat from your soles,…

  • Falling Up

    Falling Up

    You will never fall in love with me. Don’t try to convince me That I will always wait for you. If you really look, you’ll see I’m not here for the long haul Don’t imagine You give me reason to stay. When things get hard I’ll leave – Don’t imagine I’m not like the others,…

  • If I Could Write

    If I could writethe best poem ever written,it wouldn’t be carved in stoneor read aloud to thunder. It would be quiet—just your namefolded into a lineonly you would notice. It would knowhow your hands shookthe day you held someonewho didn’t stay,how you once criedinto the collar of your coatso no one would see. It would…

  • Blacktop & Burn Marks

    We hit the highwaylike it owed us something—two beers deep,one taillight out,her boots on the dashand my name on her lipslike a dare. Pickup rattledwith the sound of bad wiringand worse music.She tuned the radioby punching it,and it worked. She lit a jointoff the cigarette lighter,passed it without looking.Said,“If we crash,don’t bother calling my mother.”…

  • In the Shade of the Tree Ferns

    No path here.Just damp earth,moss on stone,and the slow, deliberate hushof growing things. Tree ferns arc overhead,fronds wide as arms,filtering lightinto something sacred. I brought my sons here,when their legs were smalland full of mud.They squatted in the black soil,drew patterns with sticks,found joyin a single wriggling earthworm. The ferns, the filtered light—none of it…

  • Instructions for Holding a Heart

    Use both hands,even if it looks small.Especially then. Do not squeeze,poke,test its reflexes.It’s not a trick muscle. Keep it warm,but not too close to flame.It remembers burning. When it trembles,don’t panic.They all do.Just be still,and let it findits own rhythm again. Do not fill itwith your own silence.It needs space,not emptiness. If it cracks,and it…

  • Paw Print

    Years since—his bowl gone,yard grown over,collar hangingunused. This morning,cleaning the window,I found it—one print,low in the corner,half lost to light. It floored me.Solid.Sure.The weight of himin a single mark. I stoodcloth in hand,his breathsuddenly in the room. Didn’t wipe it.Didn’t move. Just watchedas the sun warmed the glassand brought himloping backthrough the yardand the years.…

  • She Carries the Ocean in Her Spine

    She never saidwhat it cost to hold the world. Just straightened her backwhen it sagged,tightened the threadwhen it frayed,made dinnereven when her hands shook. Her spine—a tide chart.Each vertebramarked by wavesshe never let break. You wouldn’t know itto look at her—how many stormsshe swallowed. How many timesshe floodedand heldanyway. Some call it strength.But strength is…

  • The Way They Run to Her

    It’s not a question,just instinct.A scraped knee,a bad dream,the kind of achethey can’t name yet. They run to herlike rivers find the sea.Like they always knew the way. She doesn’t brace.Just opensarms, voice,that face that saysI’ve got you. There’s magic in it.Not the wand-waving kind,but the kind that knowswhich night light to leave on,how to…

  • The Shape My Name Takes in Your Mouth

    It’s differentwhen you say it. Softer,like it’s something you foundand didn’t want to break. No rush.You let it settleon your tongue,curl in the warmthbetween breath and meaning. Sometimesyou barely say it at all—just hum itinto my shoulder,or murmur itto the space betweensleep and waking. I’ve heard itshouted,slurred,scrawled on formsand barked in anger. But from you,it’s…

  • The Sound of Men Not Crying

    Grief came quiet—shoved in gloveboxeswith old rego papersand blunt toolskept for no reason. Tears weren’t banned,just lostbetween Dad’s silenceand busted knuckles,between she’ll be rightand a doorthat clicks shut slow. We didn’t crywhen the dog died,didn’t cry at the funeral,didn’t crywhen she walked out. Just sat there.Fence posts in floodwater. We breakin the gut,in the jaw,in…

  • Where the Sky Begins

    I was born to dirt roadsand paddocks stitched with fence wire—a sky too big for pockets,and stars that never felt far. Kookaburras laughed me awake,and magpies taught mewhich trees were theirs.The gum trees never asked for praise,but earned it,standing through wind and fire. There’s grace in the dry of it—in creeks that vanish,then come back…

  • White Dwarf, Fading

    It was once the centre of things—a sun that gave names to shadows,that warmed the bones of planetsand made time possible. Now it glowslike memory does—dim,but refusing to go out. There is no explosion.No final flare.Only the slow retreatof lightinto ash. It will cool for billions of years.Long after the Earth forgets itself,long after we’ve…

  • The Reason the World Spins

    I did not fall.I turned—slow as tide,sure as breath returningafter grief. You are not my light.You are the axis—the unseen pullthat keeps my feet to the earth,my voice steady,my hands open. Before you,I mistook motion for meaning.Now, I know the shape of stillness.I know what it isto be seenand not flinch. You ask nothing but…

  • Whalesong

    for the ones who sing into silence Somewhere below the shimmer linewhere light forgets itself,a whale turns slow in a cathedral of salt—each scar on her skina stanza. She sings,not to summon,not to find—but to remember. A song older than shipwrecks.Older than ropes and sails. The deep drinks it.Holds it like breath.Lets it echoalong trenches…

  • Night Leaves the Latch Open

    The sky forgets its thunder,clouds fold their arms—somewhere,a moth dreams of moonlight. Your breath slows.The world blurslike ink in rain. Stars peerthrough curtain cracks,gentle voyeursto a silenceall dreamers know. Let clocks keep timewithout you.Let the weight fallfrom your shoulders,like moonbeams. You’ve done enough. Close your eyes.The dark knows the way.It will carry you now,wherever you…

  • Tearing Sunshine

    Mum moves like rinse water—warm, grey,going where she’s poured.Hands red-rawfrom bleach and bonesshe can’t scrub clean.She hums when she’s bone-tired,not for tune,just to keep from cracking. Dad says work is hard—but only ever sits,rail grease on his boots,beer in hand,trophy beside him:Highest Goal Scorer,1983. He holds it like a woundthat never scabbed.Says he could’ve been…

  • First Smoke

    I lit it behind the shedwith a match I struck on the tin—my thumb raw from trying. The cigarette trembledbetween fingers that still knewLego and scraped knees. I didn’t cough.Didn’t blink.Just held the burn inlike I was keeping a secretonly smoke could understand. The dog watched,head tilted,like he knew I’d crossedinto something I couldn’t uncross.…

  • New chapbook on Amazon

    I’m excited to announce that my new chapbook is published and available for kindle on Amazon. Paperback to be released shortly. Book overview  Things That Shouldn’t Be Beautiful (But Are)Poems by Ryan Stone A jellyfish that never dies.A swan that stays after love is gone.A beetle with mirrors for eyes.This quietly astonishing collection brings together…

  • The Stack

    Miss Carr was the strict one—hair wired tight,skirts to the shin,a voice of rulesand overdue fines. The library breathed her name.Quiet, please.Return on time.Hands to yourself. I once saw her shush the deputy principal,and he apologised. We said she slept in the archives,alphabetised her dreams,quietened ghosts for sport. She didn’t see me—tucked in Fiction,in the…

  • Out Here, the Light Fails Slower

    Above us, the wind leans into nothing.Below, fenceposts mark the long retreatof boundary lines no one remembers drawing. Somewhere beyond this paddock,a child flicks a torch on and off—signalling to no one,or to the stars. High overhead,a satellite drifts,blind but listening. Closer in,a man stacks firewoodby feel alone,his breath silverin the cold. He doesn’t look…

  • Southern Cross

    Some nights,when the wind shiftsand the silence settles deep,I step out barefootonto the cold veranda. Above the gum trees—the Southern Cross,low and steady,like it’s waiting for meto notice. It doesn’t blaze,just holds its shape,a quiet thingpointing the wayI’ve always knownbut needed to remember. Not a map.Not a promise.Just a reminderthat homeisn’t something you reach—it’s the…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • Emergence

    My new chapbook is now available from Amazon and through Kelsay Books. I’m over the moon! Emergence

  • Coal Town

    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.…

  • Unburied Hatchet

    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.…

  • Dissembling

    captive cicada, rattling terrible music in the granite hill Ryan Stone