Adrift in deep space,
an astronaut lost, no wind
to feather still sails.
Oblivious world
uncaring turns, in silence
as oxygen fails.
Ryan Stone
The Journey Home
She tells me her pain is a squall,
sudden and vicious, like a flash
storm whipping in from Bass Strait
to batter King Island.
Do you remember our Island, Garth?
Her doctors build shelters; nurses
batten hatches, but this tempest
won’t blow over. She says her pain is a vulture now,
circling the desert on threadbare wings.
A glass of water if you please, Garth?
With beak and claw, it slashes and rips
nerve endings, drinks color from her eyes.
The pain is no longer squall or vulture,
she whispers, but a flutter of pages.
One last story before bed, dear Garth?
I don’t tell her that I’m her grandson—
not her brother Garth, stolen by war.
She’s a thin sheet stretched over an empty
bed; a gull’s cry on the wind.
– Ryan Stone
first published by Eunoia Review, June 2019
Fleeting
Fleeting
In bed
their tattoos met
and bled.
Ink-kissed
lovers, knowing
their tryst,
night-born
would live to die
with dawn.
Ryan Stone
In Passing
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
Depression
Pitch black,
careening down
a track
in vain
before a dark
freight train
blasts past.
Underneath, peace
at last.
Ryan Stone
Hourglass
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
Riders in the Night
Outside, in the distance
a wild cat did growl
two riders were approaching
the wind began to howl. -Bob Dylan
Hoofbeats on the tundra!
Beneath a mage’s moon
she draws her shutters closely,
prays morning finds her soon.
Thunder shatters silence,
a rapping at her door
tears the night asunder–
a wild cat’s chilling roar.
All along the cornflower
rows, shadows dance with glee,
seeking answers as the wind
howls by a lone oak tree.
Dawn finds an empty homestead–
bleeds in through broken panes,
across spilled dill an’ fennel
and spattered, rusty stains.
Ryan Stone
first published by Poppy Road Review, August 2017
Fourteen
I ‘m standing on the platform, waiting
for the school train, eating a vending machine donut.
It cost 80 cents, my entire train fare, but no-one
checks tickets this early. A magpie hunts baubles
in the trash can nearby, the moon grins faintly
in a pale, grey morning sky.
Grown ups in dazes drift over the platform, heads buried
in newspapers and coffee. I pity them their pressed pants
and shiny shoes, oblivious to magpie and moon.
Try dunking in those clunky, grown up shoes of theirs.
I’m wearing Air Jordans, perfect for launching—
and I’m closer to the ring each season.
I have no idea that a middle-aged guy is watching me
from a leather recliner in the future, documenting
my fourteen year-old thoughts. But he is, and he knows
that I’ll dunk before the year’s out. Like he knows
what Miss Mitchell, the math substitute, will teach me
one hot afternoon in her car. He knows more about me
than I know of myself, and sits spinning it into a poem.
I hate poetry, it doesn’t make sense. Not like basketball
makes sense when the girls on the sidelines cheer. Standing
on the platform, my donut is sweet. The morning is warm,
and I can hear my train rolling in.
Ryan Stone
Ghosts at Dawn
Too thin –
you now exist
within
a pause
as dawn retracts
her claws
from day;
you fade, while I
must stay.
Ryan Stone
Tempest
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
days of stone 