Conflict(ed)

The ticking clock moves my bones.
Vibrating to a new chorus.
Such fear and bravery dogfight within.
Triggering the gunfire in my heart.
Bringing other humans to their knees.
It stains this soul.
Are we cast out of Eden?
Ordered here under the guilt of honour.
Directed there by badges that shimmer in the sorrow.
A broken moral compass, scratched by time.
Left stranded out to sea.
Struck by the passing grief of that tide.
The one that washed over me.
Seeing death in the eyes of those all around.
Feeling hope strangled, feeling fear take hold.
Who really wins the fight, when we lose ourselves in the struggle?
Stretched and stricken, sunk by the force of your hate.
Every tear here brings the ocean higher.
With every cry, a family welcomes in a stranger.
A void, the blackness. The stories to tell a generation.
Of the great fight, that felt so wrong.

21/05/2020 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, death, warTags: art, badges, battle, death, dunkirk, eden, fear, fight, fighting, guns, hearts, honour, loss, medal, ocean, pain, photography, poem, Poetry, sea, sorrow, tears, tide, VE, war 7 Comments

Turbulent cosmic swells

Caught and spun, little one.
With moon dust charcoal delirium.
Pulled down, in gravity’s smile.
Replaced with apathetic juveniles.
Scream out, and shut down.
They still laugh, at the tears of a clown.
For you it rains, transitional pain.
A disappearing all over again.
But what if you survived it?
And what if you changed.
What if your revived it?
Cosmically rearranged.
Skywards hopeful, shooting free.
In sweet delicious open lunacy.
Fragile youth fades in the blink of earth’s eyes.
But your stars remain, in your own private sky.

21/07/201921/07/2019 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, stars, timeTags: age, aging, art, clown, dust, earth, freedom, galaxy, gravity, moon, poem, Poetry, rhyming, smile, space, stars 18 Comments

Fake dawn

The stars are so bright tonight.
It sounds childish, that you want it to last forever.
You see the same in my eyes.
Stretching the night.
Trusting the darkness.
Tomorrow was a failure.
Today is weakened by the sight of it.
That returning thought of Saturn.
Shrinking once more into the horizon.
You marked it there.
It’s easy to hope for the dawn to take you.
Easy to grapple that hand of mine into yours.
Sending postcards and roses to your sixteen year old self.
A secret message that you made it.
It’s harder to wipe the sleep from your eyes.
Harder to beckon in the day.
Which threatens to stain us like the ones before.
When we were lonely.
And afraid.

03/04/2019 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, light, love, PoetryTags: age, dawn, eyes, hands, light, love, poem, poetry, relationship, roses, saturn, self, stars, sun, time, tomorrow 14 Comments

Years subside

Twilight and daybreak intertwine.
Casting shadows and dawn on these eyelids.
People come and talk to me of passion.
Then they linger, and talk to me of death.
I feel stuck inside a moral station.
Watching the trains as I in decide.
I feel a murmur of god, yet the call of the wild.
Battling against the push of gravity.
No longer feeling its pull.
How the years have folded like a napkin in my lap.
Dirty and used.
Yet I wonder. I wonder if I’m hungry still.

23/09/201823/09/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, death, Poetry, timeTags: age, day, death, eyes, god, graity, life, light, nightime, passion, poem, poetry, time, trains, travel 4 Comments

Revelation

Show the world who you are.
Dripped in honey and absinthe.
Hovering by a flame.
All parts, never the same.
As they try to push you under a reason.
A statement, a label, or part treason.
When you smash the brackets of age that constricts.
And you pull down the gods for a closer look.
They’ll see you reflect in their eyes.
Please, memorise their apology.
And wave as they pass you by.

27/02/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, apology, gods, PoetryTags: age, apology, beauty, drink, flames, honey, labels, poem, poetry, society 20 Comments

Fly me to the moon

Into the shuttle, with a clink and clank.
Climbed old Richard, the adventurous Yank.
He counted down, from ten to zero.
Puffed out his chest, as America’s new hero.
And he soared into the sky, with his hands in his pockets.
As he shot to the moon on the back of a rocket.
And the earth dripped away under the clouds and his feet.
He smiled at his fortune that was ever so sweet.
Yet alone on this flight, bound for the lunar oasis.
As his body hung on earth in a medical stasis.
In the nursing home called Cherry palm, Richard resided.
At 92, was the best place his children decided;
For him to live out his days in comfort and care.
Little knowing each day was full of lonely despair.
And that is why, though medicated it’s noted.
He navigated the world, and now space where he floated.
And he went where he wanted, on his own in his head.
He had travelled to the moon without leaving his bed.

03/02/201703/02/2017 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, moon, Poetry, spaceTags: age, american, cherry, drugs, earth, flight, loneliness, lonely, medication, moon, nursing, oasis, old age, poem, poetry, rocket, ship, shuttle, time, world Leave a comment

Remembering myself

These days wash through me like the rain.
As this greying world fades.
Earth descending. Blurring off on the horizon.
The winter chill lingers over my future like an old man’s grip.
Choking me into anonymity.
Freezing the hope in my lungs.
How many times must I travel to the lighthouse?
Climbing the rocks that make my feet and heart bleed.
Insurmountable despondency. Wrapped in a sold version of existence.
The reins and remains of the day fall loose in my palm.
Sweating in the fear of losing all I have, and all I will ever be.
Clocking the years as they hurry through me like ghosts on a train.
Feeling like a stranger in my own life.

02/02/201704/02/2017 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, earth, Poetry, timeTags: age, days, depressed, dispondent, ghosts, gray, grey, hope, life, lighthouse, lungs, poem, poetry, rain, time 4 Comments