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.
Days
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
Self-portrait
And these are my failings:
a wild smile always leads my mind
to the kiss hiding behind it
and sometimes to plot
the shortest route there.
Did I say sometimes? I lie a bit, too.
And I tend to zone out to small-talk –
there are enough idle words
in the world.
And I can’t warm to people,
despite how I try.
I’m lying again – I don’t try at all.
I’d much rather hide
with Lana Del Rey,
alone in the dark
drinking vodka,
ignoring that night
in my fourteenth year
when my father got drunk,
made me drive his ute home –
the soft bump and loud bark,
the crimson accusation,
coagulating on his tyre
next morning.
Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Failures
First published in Poppy Road Review, May 2016.
Adrift
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
Death in Suburbia
Sometime past lunch
when the housework is done
a translucent lady
sheds her husk. In her mirror
the tricksy sun cajoles
grey to gold, teases
with wistful strokes.
Like a vodka-chased pill
she slides down a rabbit hole
until soft fingers feel
almost like strangers.
With a methodical parting
and functional probing,
she dies another small death.
Ryan Stone
The Weight
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.
I’ll not tread lightly
Remember school days and how we would play
like there was no tomorrow?
Now the castles we made
are the price we must pay
or flounder in oceans of sorrow.
Roaming wild and free, building houses in trees
as worlds waltzed to discordant tunes–
like a zephyr through grass,
gilded summer days passed,
left us flayed under Cheshire moons.
Wooden sword fights and valiant knights,
pirates, the Pan and his Bell,
faded from dreams,
rowed ungentle streams,
to where the real monsters dwell.
I’ve climbed faraway trees, seen fair Honah-Lee,
never never thought I’d grow old.
Now the pied piper calls —
as the last curtain falls,
leafless, I’ll trip into the wold.
Ryan Stone
En Passant
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
The Long Road
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
The Sculptor
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
days of stone 