too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
It wasn’t a spectacular leaf:
rather drab, too long from tree.
Yet, the life it clutched
in its five trembling points
turned my strides into steps
into stasis. I watched
as it danced,
sucking more from a gust
than nearby leaves
better suited to flying.
It spiraled away
to a lazuline sky
while I remained rooted;
going nowhere.
Ryan Stone
On Sunset Strip the lights have dimmed
And silent now their siren’s call.
A fading starlet’s eyes are brimmed
With tears–one more forgotten thrall
Who keeps her locks of platinum trimmed,
Awaits her call to glory,
Lays bare her soul to cheat decay
And rewrite her life’s story.
He sculpts her in immortal clay,
In meadows cold and hoary;
Holds time’s determined march at bay
From fields of faded glory.
Ryan Stone
In the photo I keep in my wallet
you’re smiling. No hint of ghosts
in the glint of your eye.
You’re sitting on a riverbank
weaving a daisy chain
I wore until it crumbled–
linking flower to flower
with the unblemished certainty
that beauty and vows are forever.
Ryan Stone
-blazon after Woloch
My love with her chocolate river of tresses,
Her slow-flowing curls, polished mahogany.
My love with her lips of tequila sunrise
With her milky-skinned sin, spreading wildfire blush.
My love with her hummingbird voice
Her windswept dune song, her soul
strumming hum
My love with her eyes of moonstone and twilight,
Her mysterious eyes of long tide pool shadows
My love with her willow tree frame
With her star-dappled thighs, soft gossamer down.
My love with her lotus bloom tongue,
Her narcotic tongue tracing spirals through midnight,
My love with her deep-desert wellspring,
To which I stumble, broken and parched.
Ryan Stone
Posted at dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics: Sensory Play
There’s a lot going on in the world
today. My TV stays off
for sanity’s sake.
Another school. Child. Innocent.
Betrayal. And fear, like a flag
hanging over it all.
When sorrow engulfs me, I almost feel guilty–
how does an old paw print
eclipse any of that?
But my sphere spins slowly, the breeze
carries ghosts, forgotten barks—
long walks by the coast.
Ryan Stone
Each night
feathered wings gift
wild flight—
a slip
from chains, set free
to trip
and roam,
’til dawn’s siren
call home.
Ryan Stone
From my porch
I watch thunderheads
battering high noon
into bruised twilight.
I see you climb
from under eaves,
awakened
by a pressure change.
As the storm inhales
you leap and spin,
leap and spin
your web — knowing
your time to build
is fleeting.
Ryan Stone
Advertisement for Myers Gloves, by Margaret Watkins (Canada), 1920s.
Mother’s Hands
Strong enough to lift me
each time I couldn’t rise. Soft
as cotton wool, washing
dirt from scrapes and tears
from eyes. Firm enough
to model clay
and boys, to bowls
and men, yet fine
when stroking ivory keys–
Für Elise and Clair de Lune.
They’d curl through each long evening
around her only vice, in a holder
like Audrey’s, that never left her side.
I’m thinking of her hands now–
strong and wild and free; missing
her hands now, as I watch ashes
blow to sea.
Ryan Stone
Written for the 20 poem challenge at Ekphrastic, September 2016.
First published at Ekphrastic, September 2016
never recovered from the storms of ’93
when lightning stroked shingles, shorted out circuits,
left one side wind blown and sagging.
Tufts of moss sprout from the bowed memory
of taut boards. A plague of crickets
lurk beneath stairs, creaking their arthritic chatter.
From a threadbare recliner in a ramshackle room
I gaze over fields at a familiar view,
distorted by windows now broken and rheumy.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 