Tag: trapped
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Choke Town
The butcher’s sign still swings,though the shop’s been guttedsince Gaz ran a hose from the tailpipeand left the lights on. The school gate’s rusted open.Wind sifts chalk dustthrough cracked windowswhere names once lined the rolllike prayers in hell. Down at the silo,kids mainline in the shadowof grain that never came.One girl carved a starinto her…
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Tearing Sunshine
Mum moves like rinse water—warm, grey,going where she’s poured.Hands red-rawfrom bleach and bonesshe 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 woundthat never scabbed.Says he could’ve been…
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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.…
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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,…
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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;…
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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…
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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…
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Irish Fire
My grandmother called it Irish fire, said it raged through my father hotter than Beli Mawr’s bum. She was long dead when it finally flared fiercer than he could contain. The embers of his eyes scorched childhood’s last leaves to ash, left them smoldering. Ryan Stone
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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,…
