Self-portrait

And these are my failings:
a wild smile always leads my mind
to the kiss hiding behind it
and sometimes to plot
the shortest route there.

Did I say sometimes? I lie a bit, too.
And I tend to zone out to small-talk –
there are enough idle words
in the world.

And I can’t warm to people,
despite how I try.
I’m lying again – I don’t try at all.
I’d much rather hide
with Lana Del Rey,
alone in the dark
drinking vodka,

ignoring that night
in my fourteenth year
when my father got drunk,
made me drive his ute home –
the soft bump and loud bark,
the crimson accusation,
coagulating on his tyre
next morning.

Ryan Stone

Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Failures

First published in Poppy Road Review, May 2016.

July 25, 2024 107

Roulette

Awake!
A slate grey, cold
daybreak –

blood clot
sunrise, I take
a shot

and miss.
Life must hold more
than this.

Ryan Stone

April 29, 2024 39

The Walk

I wake a full hour early
for the rare gift
of a walk in the woods
with my father.

He is a silent giant
among misty ghost gums.
I tell him, Watch!
See how fast I can run.

He doesn’t yell when I trip
and fall, but lifts me
with unfamiliar,
calloused hands.

At the end of the trail
I study my grazes—jagged
and bloody. He tells me
he’s leaving my mum.

On the walk home
I gaze at the gum trees
and fragmented clouds, thinking
they should look different somehow.

Ryan Stone

first published at Poetry Nook, 1st place Week 185

April 26, 2024 42

Like Grass

I’ll bend, you know.
Each time you kick
or stomp me underfoot.

Though sustenance
is rare as winter sun,
I’ll thrive, you know

and grow to cover
every corner of the meadow
where you lie.

I’ll rise, you know.
Rise and rise–
I’ll rise.

Ryan Stone

April 25, 2024 33

Tempest

Wind, blow –
lift me high, don’t
let go;

fly me
far, above sand
and sea.

Monsoon –
take me, let’s chase
the moon.

– Ryan Stone

April 3, 2024 57

Rhyme of the Kingdom

Over the mountains
and down to the sea,
you must come now
if you hope to break free.
No time to mourn
for Autumn’s red bowers;
the light we once made,
now darkness devours.

I can play you
the rhymes of the kingdom,
I can sing you
the songs that you know;
but we must take wing
from this darkened halo –
we must take wing
for a devil wind blows.

Break from your prison
of urban malaise;
run to the ocean,
fly from your home.
I offer no promise
that we’ll make it –
but take my hand
and I’ll never let go.

– Ryan Stone