Tag: trapped

Choke Town

The butcher’s sign still swings,
though the shop’s been gutted
since Gaz ran a hose from the tailpipe
and left the lights on.

The school gate’s rusted open.
Wind sifts chalk dust
through cracked windows
where names once lined the roll
like prayers in hell.

Down at the silo,
kids mainline in the shadow
of grain that never came.
One girl carved a star
into her thigh—
the first scar
she chose.

The creek runs red when it rains.
No fish, no frogs,
no reason left to lie.

Dogs roam in threes.
Cattle follow fence lines
out of habit, not hope.
Even the sky
hangs lower than it used to,
like it’s tired
of watching us fail.

Mothers drink in sheds.
Fathers forget birthdays.
The baker feeds birds
because they still show up.

And under the rot
of pubs, paddocks
and cracked hope,

the town exhales.
Shallow and slow.
Waiting for someone
to mumble last rites.

Ryan Stone

10

Tearing Sunshine

Mum moves like rinse water—
warm, grey,
going where she’s poured.
Hands red-raw
from bleach and bones
she can’t scrub clean.
She hums when she’s bone-tired,
not for tune,
just to keep from cracking.

Dad says work is hard—
but only ever sits,
rail grease on his boots,
beer in hand,
trophy beside him:
Highest Goal Scorer,
1983.

He holds it like a wound
that never scabbed.
Says he could’ve been something
if Mum hadn’t—
if I hadn’t—

Doesn’t say the rest.
He just drinks.

Then one day—
a yellow dress.
Hand-me-down.
Sunlight sewn into thread.

Mum steps into the yard
like she’s forgotten
someone might be watching.
Strips to the greying cotton of her
and pulls the yellow on—
slow, soft,
like trying on a life
that didn’t happen.

She twirls once.
Eyes closed.
A ghost of a girl
smiling through the cracks.

Then boots.
The back door slams.
Slut
In a voice like wire.

The dress tears in two directions—
fabric, then her.
She clutches the scraps
to the parts of her
he once loved.

And shrinks.

That night—
beer cans breathing,
trophy glinting
under weak kitchen light.
He slumps.
Mouth open.
Gone.

I take the trophy,
glass warm from his hand.
Step barefoot through bindii
to the path.
Raise it.

It catches moonlight
for a second.
Then gone.

The sound is clean.

I lay the shattered pieces by his chair,
like they fell
when he groped
for the past
and missed.

Ryan Stone

11

Coal Town

Birds don’t stop in this town.
I see them fly past, black peppering
blue, going someplace. I’ve given up
dreaming wings. This town
will know my bones. Condoms
sell well in Joe’s corner store – boredom breeds
but breeding’s a trap, a twitch in the smile
of those steel-eyed shrews
who linger late after church.
I walked half a day, out past the salt flats,
after they closed the movie house down. Smoked
the joint she’d brought back from college
when she returned to bury my dad.
I remember how pale her fingers lay
across my father’s hands –
coal miner’s hands, tarred like his lungs;
like this town.

Ryan Stone

First published in Eunoia Review, July 2016.

Winner of the Goodreads Monthly Poetry Contest, August 2016.

First Place in Poetry Nook contest 101, November 2016.

image

162

Drought Town

This is the summer of red dust. Everything
sucked dry—hollow as cicada husks, wedged
under eaves and porch stairs—waiting
for a wind change. On the road out of town,
empty grain silos loom, perched like headstones
over wheat-field graves. Harvesters sag, tyres
cracked like the asphalt. Rotting carcasses
litter riverless beds—tongues swollen,
flyblown, unslaked. First, a wheeze,
then my pickup spews steam. It dies in a ditch
under a burnt-orange sun. Tiger snake chunks
graffiti the hood’s underside, one blind eye bulging
from the torn head. It must have sought shade
or wiper water—sliding up from the parched earth
miles back. Now it’s just one more dead thing
in a land of dead things. This is the summer
of red dust. It swirls and the road ahead blurs.

– Ryan Stone

first published by Eunoia Review

23

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

image

67

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

watermarked2016-11-21-2200

28

Breaking Point

Pa, I see you in your shed–
unaware of dusk settling
over your garden, painting
your pink crabapple blossoms
grey. I see you bend, to squint
at some small imperfection
marring the wooden soldier
you’ve spent the whole day carving,
hands slow-dancing to a tune
no-one else can hear. Later
Ma will shake her head, dismiss
your need for perfect contours
and seamless joins as foolish,
not understanding a man,
a soldier or a husband
is only ever as strong
as his weakest part.

Ryan Stone

17

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑