too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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 cold place
I see your face
as it was behind the gym,
where your lips
once tasted
of blackberries
and sunshine.
Ryan Stone
Warm sand
between our toes,
your hand
belongs
in mine, until
our songs
are sung;
our instruments
unstrung.
Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Aging.
Sometimes she’s wildfire, burning through the night;
some days she’s a winter storm, ice and fury unleashed.
Sometimes she’s a shadow, neither fully here or really there;
some days she’s untamable, wild as rolling seas.
Sometimes I hold her close, as the world starts coming undone;
some days we fit together and I feel that I belong.
Ryan Stone
One drunken night, he lay on the coach road
and she lay beside him. He pictured a truck
descending–wobbling around corners,
gaining momentum. They spoke about crushes,
first kisses. He told her of an older woman
who’d stolen a thing he couldn’t replace.
He tried to describe the weight of lost things.
She listened until he stopped,
until I stopped
hiding behind he. I felt small,
watching the cosmos churn
while I lay on the coach road
one summer night,
speaking of big things
and nothing.
Ryan Stone
first published at Algebra of Owls, November 2016
Republished for dVerse poetics – Poems That Could Save Your Life – this friendship saved mine.
-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
After all the years, the heart-shaped
promises, a Ponts des Arts love lock
one Spring, it has come now to this —
a sterile room, too-small-for-two bed,
plastic flowers, faint urine smell.
Standing bedside, she strokes and hums,
remembers a warm night by the sea.
The setting sun kisses white hair
golden. Tremors become twitches,
become silence.
Ryan Stone
On a Monday I met her, but should’ve known better-
moon days bode ill for new friends.
Lunar sea tides with light and dark sides
make Monday trysts wane to weak ends.
Aphelion eyes, dark hair and toned thighs
presaged a blue moon ascending.
With a wink and a gun, she blocked out the sun
in total eclipse, never-ending.
Said, taking my hand: you’ve the look of a man
who’d rather not sleep ’til he’s dead.
I refuse to work harder or pay for my Prada,
let’s dance with the Devil instead.
We ran for a time on a dream and a dime,
both stolen and hard to sustain.
At the trail’s grim end, a posse of men
machine-gunned love’s final refrain.
Ryan Stone
First published at Poetry Nook, May 2017.
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
days of stone 
