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
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
It wasn’t a spectacular leaf:
rather drab, too long from tree.
Yet, the life it clutched
in its five trembling points
turned my strides into steps
into stasis. I watched
as it danced,
sucking more from a gust
than nearby leaves
better suited to flying.
It spiraled away
to a lazuline sky
while I remained rooted;
going nowhere.
Ryan Stone
I drink all day
and then strike out
along that winding road,
where shadows flit
by leafy bough
and twilight waits
for no-one;
where failing light
births fickle fiends
who writhe and tempt
the absent mind.
In deepen wood
where mildew clings
to night’s cool breath,
a parting kiss
for seasons
long since flown.
Ryan Stone
It starts with a single languid drop,
beating a hardpan drum.
Cicadas warble a scorched-earth vibrato,
rushing skyward, the long-dry undone.
Rusty tears trickle their bullnose percussion
on verandah iron and brass. While the red dusts
of torment yawn and drink deeply,
thirsty as fire-kissed grass.
My hard-bitten mongrels, in Waratah shade,
flick ears laid unseasonably low.
Drought threatens to claim what Tigers have not.
Limp tails tell tales of woe.
Resembling slender men, brown withered stems
raise limp hands, tattered and burned.
A chorus begins, Magpie trills and woodwind;
life to the outback returned.
Movement staccatos; even dragonflies pause
from their wild tumbles and dips.
A long-absent lover, in the final refrain,
bestows a moist kiss on parched lips.
by Ryan Stone
* Tigers -> the venomous Australian Tiger Snake
Click here for audio
First published in Of Words and Water 2014
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
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!
I wake a full hour early
for the rare gift
of a walk in the woods
with my father.
He is a silent giant
among misty ghost gums.
I tell him, Watch!
See how fast I can run.
He doesn’t yell when I trip
and fall, but lifts me
with unfamiliar,
calloused hands.
At the end of the trail
I study my grazes—jagged
and bloody. He tells me
he’s leaving my mum.
On the walk home
I gaze at the gum trees
and fragmented clouds, thinking
they should look different somehow.
Ryan Stone
first published at Poetry Nook, 1st place Week 185
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
I am he who worships Spring
in moonlit mountain shallows.
I am he who watches you,
insubstantial shadow.
I am he who brings night’s ship
safe to morning’s shore.
I am he who loves you,
your servant, evermore.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 