too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
Clock hands circle lethargically. Heels
clack, a distant speaker hisses –
muted, surreal.
I shift on a green vinyl chair, eyes
trace an arc from clock to window.
Outside, a succubus sun
kisses children at play.
At my father’s bedside, both of us
wish I wasn’t. I despise myself
for watching the minutes, and him
for teaching me to. Broken
conversations keep awkward vigil
for something long dead.
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
In my father’s field
fledgling hopes are neatly hedged,
sown in the soil of silent forebears.
Beside a bourne, in chalk and flint,
dreams are buried deep.
The rasping of his shovel has slowed
this season. Some furrows lie shallow,
others run deeper.
Through rustic panes I watch him bend,
straining against the pull of years
to pluck joy from the loam.
A moment’s pause to contemplate
a lone invader into precise ranks,
before his shovel resumes its dirge.
Discarding my pen, I fall in beside–
a forgotten page, unplowed.
Ryan Stone
First published on The Houseboat in August, 2015
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
Awake!
A slate grey, cold
daybreak –
blood clot
sunrise, I take
a shot
and miss.
Life must hold more
than this.
Ryan Stone
Above fields, bright paper planes fly
While dark the shadows dance below.
Like dreams released come morning’s rise
Above fields, bright paper planes fly.
In silence waits the blackened sky,
The final pitch, night’s all star throw.
Above fields bright, paper planes fly,
While dark the shadows dance below.
Ryan Stone
Lunacy lives in the full face of the moon,
blood has infinite shades of red. The perfect crime
doesn’t exist. Every contact leaves a trace.
When there’s nothing to gain, people can still be evil.
When there’s everything to lose, people may surprise you.
Occasionally there is honour among thieves.
There are multiple truths, perspective is all. Sometimes
there are only questions. Everyone has a price,
I’m not talking money. Life is unfair. Trust me
means don’t. The sins of one moment can reverberate
for a lifetime. Love is the very best
and worst of things.
Ryan Stone
For dVerse prompt, May 11, 2017 – a List Poem.
never recovered from the storms of ’93
when lightning stroked shingles, shorted out circuits,
left one side wind blown and sagging.
Tufts of moss sprout from the bowed memory
of taut boards. A plague of crickets
lurk beneath stairs, creaking their arthritic chatter.
From a threadbare recliner in a ramshackle room
I gaze over fields at a familiar view,
distorted by windows now broken and rheumy.
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!
days of stone 