too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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 Nook, October 2018, Nominated for 2018 Pushcart Prize
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
The last leaves are golden,
most have already flown. Branches
hang bare beneath ashen skies.
Not so different from when you climbed,
hand over slow hand, waging a war
inside your young mind. One leaf
breaks free, hangs on a moment,
before leaping into the maelstrom.
I imagine a short fall,
sharp jerk and silence;
but it’s only a leaf and spirals away,
no note to mark its passing.
– 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.
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
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
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, dismiss
your need for perfect contours
and seamless joins as foolish,
not understanding a man,
a soldier or a husband
is only ever as strong
as his weakest part.
Ryan Stone
Advertisement for Myers Gloves, by Margaret Watkins (Canada), 1920s.
Mother’s Hands
Strong enough to lift me
each time I couldn’t rise. Soft
as cotton wool, washing
dirt from scrapes and tears
from eyes. Firm enough
to model clay
and boys, to bowls
and men, yet fine
when stroking ivory keys–
Für Elise and Clair de Lune.
They’d curl through each long evening
around her only vice, in a holder
like Audrey’s, that never left her side.
I’m thinking of her hands now–
strong and wild and free; missing
her hands now, as I watch ashes
blow to sea.
Ryan Stone
Written for the 20 poem challenge at Ekphrastic, September 2016.
First published at Ekphrastic, September 2016
days of stone 