Tag: end
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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.…
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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.…
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Tōrō Nagashi
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…
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Pulling Back the Sheet
It started as a scribble in my yearbook and ended with an apology, of sorts: I wish I’d been more, held your hand when it mattered and even when it didn’t. Ink lasts longer than schoolyard dreams, wilted before their bloom. Notes we wrote lend breath to ghosts, long after pens fall still. In this…
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I’ll not tread lightly
Remember school days and how we would play like there was no tomorrow? Now the castles we made are the price we must pay or flounder in oceans of sorrow. Roaming wild and free, building houses in trees as worlds waltzed to discordant tunes– like a zephyr through grass, gilded summer days passed, left us…
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The Sculptor
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…
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Old Photograph
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
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Irish Fire
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
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Dog Days
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…
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Breaking Point
Pa, I see you in your shed– unaware of dusk settling over your garden, painting your pink crabapple blossoms grey. I see you bend, to squint at some small imperfection marring the wooden soldier you’ve spent the whole day carving, hands slow-dancing to a tune no-one else can hear. Later Ma will shake her head,…
