Came to disappear

More pain in her heart than a bomb over Japan.
She clicks her heels, but nothing happens.
More alone than home.
She darts into the traffic.
Proudly defiant, like rhinos on the Serengeti.
This was her town, but from it now she runs.
Her tears falling like skyscrapers.
Down into the rain and the black streets of London.
That tries to coil around her feet.
The slinking snake of society.
She runs out.
Down.
Then up.
Onto the lampposts until they change to trees.
And she feels the nature breathe back within.
The racing rats she leaves behind.
Throwing her phone and her tolerance into the trash as she departs.
This was never for her.
She comes now, out into the greens and browns that match her eyes.
Seeing the vista swim into view like a quiet paradise.
She comes here, to disappear.
She comes to survive.

30/11/202224/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: animals, city, escapeTags: animals, art, bombs, escape, eyes, heels, london, nature, poem, Poetry, rhino, running, skyscraper Leave a comment

Tragedy ending on this

As the city hums, and chokes the flowers.
This mind refracts.
Stuttering like the trains which snake beneath my feet.
Beneath my bones which rot like timbers of time.
Belonging to a place that clouds and coughs.
Surrounding like a multitude of sin.
This is what I wanted after all.
But the magpies pull the treasures away.
Spiriting the sparkle skyward like seasons.
I feel old and rooted.
Yet freshly hewn and tender.
A ghost of a ship stranded in an international airport.
Someone’s lost luggage.
Unclaimed but missed.
What if the cracks and voids are filled.
By only nonsense and the spit of this current time.
Fuzzy images and words that make no sense line my eyes.
And roar while I try to sleep.
This sleep, this dream.
Shaking in and out of a nightmare.
Which I chose to play.

13/05/202213/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: city, nightmares, timeTags: airport, art, birds, city, dreams, fate, flowers, ghost, lonely, nightmares, poem, Poetry, sad, ship, time, treasure 3 Comments

Hunted

Are you haunted or hunted?
Crossing streams of inky despair.
Trying to slip away into the night.
A hunted animal.
Arrow marked and sought out.
It is not the jungle you wish to return to.
The scraping spires of the city is the one you hope to leave.
But they won’t let you be.
You’re a hunted animal.
Wiping tears on leaves as you run.
Putting out the forest fires.
But soon your heart tires.
Waiting for collapse.
Still hunted.
Still haunted.
On the edge of extinction.

17/11/202107/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: animals, city, escapeTags: animals, city, escape, fire, forest, hunted, hunter, hunting, poem, Poetry, running, tears Leave a comment

No sound but escape

The last gasp of a city, stifled through individual disdain.
Strapped to that engine of pain.
The eternal clock that moves everyone forward.
The teacup, that cannot un-shatter.
God’s will, the devil’s plan.
Darkness leaking up out of the drains.
Black balloons to cloud our uneventful skies.
Thoughts like a bruise.
Blooming and fostering more on a delicate mind.
They wait around for the heart to break.
The lies to normalise.
The violence to wrap itself around.
Like fingers of priests, going where they shouldn’t.
You want to leave this place.
Crumble the buildings that warren your life.
Cough out the diseases and the dirt and take a train.
Over tracks on water, the straight edges leading away.
To what, you don’t know.
New spaces to inhabit, to sink a soul into.
Uncertainty, the first sign of freedom.
Lighting fireworks in the mind.
Soon the metropolis an old family member.
Seen only on special occasions.
Lonely in your memory, and very nearly forgotten.

10/09/202110/09/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: city, escape, sadnessTags: chained, city, damaged, dark, devil, escape, god, metropolis, prison, sad, skies, train, travel Leave a comment

As the city sleeps

Still waiting for the big revelation.
Be prepared for anything, but do you still believe?
Dreaming of big distractions and carbon copied lives.
Left with diamond headaches and pills to make you sleep.
Don’t sleep, dream. Let it in.
Kick start that desire that you are just as good as God.
Good as gold even. Counting zeros on a monthly slide.
A king or queen of comedy.
Hanging on the end of the line.
Hanging onto anything.
Smear the sugar on your lips and catch the bees.
Be prepared for the sting, decompress and sing.
Close your eyes as your tongue lolls over.
Cityscapes and supernovas.
Mercury swinging in to shift the traffic.
Allowing you to arrive more easily.
Computered to your destination.
Yet missing your arrival.
Sleep another day away.
Swimming in medicated decay.
Remember to set that alarm to wake the city.
Not even giving the dead a rest.

03/07/202102/07/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: city, drugsTags: city, comedy, computer, diamonds, digital, drugs, king, modern, poem, Poetry, queen, science, sleep, travel, work 5 Comments