too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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
Awake!
A slate grey, cold
daybreak –
blood clot
sunrise, I take
a shot
and miss.
Life must hold more
than this.
Ryan Stone
Pitch black,
careening down
a track
in vain
before a dark
freight train
blasts past.
Underneath, peace
at last.
Ryan Stone
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
Over the mountains
and down to the sea,
you must come now
if you hope to break free.
No time to mourn
for Autumn’s red bowers;
the light we once made,
now darkness devours.
I can play you
the rhymes of the kingdom,
I can sing you
the songs that you know;
but we must take wing
from this darkened halo –
we must take wing
for a devil wind blows.
Break from your prison
of urban malaise;
run to the ocean,
fly from your home.
I offer no promise
that we’ll make it –
but take my hand
and I’ll never let go.
– Ryan Stone
dawn pauses, explodes
in a flash of carmine fire
flaring in the east
flaring in the east,
Icarus ascends his throne –
blazing flight of one
blazing flight of one,
Labyrinth behind, no one
makes it out alone
– Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Being Alone
In a dead soldier
The captive firefly’s slow death
Holds the night at bay
Ryan Stone
days of stone 