days of stone

Tag: death

  • River Stone

    —

    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

  • Shadowfall

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

  • Weight

    —

    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

  • Choke Town

    —

    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    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…

  • Paw Print

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    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.…

  • Coal Town

    Coal Town

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    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

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    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

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

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

  • Drought Town

    Drought Town

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    This is the summer of red dust. Everything sucked dry—hollow as cicada husks, wedged under eaves and porch stairs—waiting for a wind change. On the road out of town, empty grain silos loom, perched like headstones over wheat-field graves. Harvesters sag, tyres cracked like the asphalt. Rotting carcasses litter riverless beds—tongues swollen, flyblown, unslaked. First,…

  • Tōrō Nagashi

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    by

    Ryan Stone
    in

    Your flame flickers briefly— a parting whisper. Some trick of the river mimics your laughter. We stand apart at sunset, lost in natsukashii, come together in darkness, to watch the dead pass on. Your light has fallen now to shadow beneath the bridge. Ryan Stone First published on Napalm and Novocain, January 2016 Published at Poetry…