too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
The house didn’t fall
when they left.
The kettle still boils,
the dog still waits
for your voice in the morning.
Time to forget
the way you bent to fit
what was never built for you.
The sky hasn’t stopped
its slow turning.
Magpies still sing.
You breathe.
Something holds.
This isn’t the end.
It never is.
The right one
won’t ask you to shrink.
What stays
will stay
without being begged.
Ryan Stone
I’m not an ice-block or wasted teardrop,
mooching around your Long Island Iced Tea.
I’m not chasing dreams, dreaming of Jeannie,
won’t slow for one more whistle stop.
I’ve never bridged sighs, I don’t island hop,
or tasted the free airs of Heaney.
Nor held a heart that, like some Houdini,
didn’t vanish with barbaric yawp.
I have set no flame within love’s hearth
to burn that shantytown down.
At night I am king, come morning uncrowned.
I walk in as Luke, march out as Darth.
Rivers are rivers, regardless of flow–
O, stone, be not so; O, stone, be not so.
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
My grandmother called it
Irish fire, said it raged
through my father
hotter than Beli Mawr’s bum.
She was long dead
when it finally flared
fiercer than he could contain.
The embers of his eyes
scorched childhood’s
last leaves to ash,
left them smoldering.
Ryan Stone
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
From this bridge of sighs
They watch the chasm sunder
Here, where dreaming ends
Ryan Stone
Her kiss
at dawn is what
I miss
the most –
as day break sings
a ghost
refrain:
love dims to dust
and pain.
Ryan Stone
For a time
You were everything.
Your smile
Lit sparks
That raced
Down my spine,
My heart skipped a beat
When you
Spoke to me.
The world paused
So we could run free.
You seemed so divine
For a time.
Things always change.
Forever’s a dream,
Every summer
Has rain.
I stopped being
The light in your world,
Once again
You’re a mystery girl.
I know you’ll find love,
I know you’re not mine,
But I want you to know
I was yours
For a time.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 