too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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 meadows cold and hoary;
Holds time’s determined march at bay
From fields of faded glory.
Ryan Stone
Each night
feathered wings gift
wild flight—
a slip
from chains, set free
to trip
and roam,
’til dawn’s siren
call home.
Ryan Stone
From my porch
I watch thunderheads
battering high noon
into bruised twilight.
I see you climb
from under eaves,
awakened
by a pressure change.
As the storm inhales
you leap and spin,
leap and spin
your web — knowing
your time to build
is fleeting.
Ryan Stone
In my father’s field
fledgling hopes are neatly hedged,
sown in the soil of silent forebears.
Beside a bourne, in chalk and flint,
dreams are buried deep.
The rasping of his shovel has slowed
this season. Some furrows lie shallow,
others run deeper.
Through rustic panes I watch him bend,
straining against the pull of years
to pluck joy from the loam.
A moment’s pause to contemplate
a lone invader into precise ranks,
before his shovel resumes its dirge.
Discarding my pen, I fall in beside–
a forgotten page, unplowed.
Ryan Stone
First published on The Houseboat in August, 2015
Awake!
A slate grey, cold
daybreak –
blood clot
sunrise, I take
a shot
and miss.
Life must hold more
than this.
Ryan Stone
The first splash,
a drum crash
on hardpan.
Tin roof hiss,
a slow kiss
that grows
into rushing
percussion.
New voices rise,
warbles and sighs,
from beneath the shelter
of tree ferns–
a chorus begins,
magpie trills
and woodwind,
as sound
to the outback
returns.
Ryan Stone
Another bite at dVerse quadrille #33 – Sound Off!
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
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
A silent witness crests the hill
where bloody rain once fell.
The sob and clubbing fractured now –
hearts beat on distant shores
where brothers wait with shaking hands
to charge into the dawn.
Across the Sea of Helle they came,
from many different ports,
to lay down cold on foreign stone,
enlisted on some other front.
Flags hang low and I am borne
by a bugle’s mournful calling,
as first light joins eternal flame
“stand to!” cleaves the morning.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 