too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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
Pitch black,
careening down
a track
in vain
before a dark
freight train
blasts past.
Underneath, peace
at last.
Ryan Stone
We walk the tide line
barefoot on the morning sand,
your steps close by mine.
Later, I return alone
but no trace of us remains.
Ryan Stone
Too thin –
you now exist
within
a pause
as dawn retracts
her claws
from day;
you fade, while I
must stay.
Ryan Stone
Wind, blow –
lift me high, don’t
let go;
fly me
far, above sand
and sea.
Monsoon –
take me, let’s chase
the moon.
– Ryan Stone
A breeze
blows in, lifts her
with ease,
this shell.
As I whisper
farewell,
Godspeed.
The ties that bind
recede.
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
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
dawn pauses, explodes
in a flash of carmine fire
flaring in the east
flaring in the east,
Icarus ascends his throne –
blazing flight of one
blazing flight of one,
Labyrinth behind, no one
makes it out alone
– Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Being Alone
– after Longfellow
The wind whispers, the wind sighs,
the dawn light brightens, a magpie cries;
amongst the gum trees tall and green
a girl becomes a faerie queen.
And the wind whispers, the wind sighs.
Morning settles beneath silk skies,
her reign flits by like dragonflies;
deep shadows dress the naked hill
in dusk, as faerie wings fall still.
And the wind whispers, the wind sighs.
Night throws a cloak; a barn owl cries,
another answers, stars blink like eyes.
The queen is gone, won’t come again;
these woods forever will remain.
And the wind whispers, the wind sighs.
– Ryan Stone
first published at Poetry Nook, May 2020
days of stone 