The Smoking nun

God’s grace, bathed in divine light.
Casting gold over cracking skin and fallen vows.
The vessel inside, so empty at the beginning.
Now overflows like a cup of human kindness.
What troubles does she have at the seat of the saints?
What ails her heart that cannot be soothed?
Sweet words from Jesus must mend the wound.
She smiles at a knowing, a celestial secret.
Whispered to her in the musky wooden rooms of god.
All this is but temporal.
All pain is marginal.
Your being is relative to the consciousness you invoke.
So why does she smoke?

14/12/202226/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, religion, smokeTags: art, divine, god, healing, heaven, human, jesus, kindness, life, meaning, nun, poem, Poetry, words, wound 6 Comments

Bare

My bones lay like dust in your eyes.
Is that why you cry?
Seeing such emotion stripped bare.
Chalking up your mind.
Yet this heart beats in your mouth.
An oral fixation for the truth.
Tasting every rhythm. Every pulse.
I burned all this down around me.
To smoke out the ghosts of a past.
The ones you wanted dead.
So, now lay me down.
And kiss me back to life.

23/11/202223/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: bones, heart, smokeTags: art, bones, fire, flame, ghosts, heart, love, pain, poem, Poetry, smoke, truth, you Leave a comment

Papa

Salmon and trout, all be out.
And make sure they’re not after.
Have a drink boy, grow up quick boy.
Be just like your father.
Ignore all change, forget to hope.
Learn to live with racist jokes.
Walk the line, sharp as whisky.
Make sure you’re dead before you’re sixty.
Why are you crying?
What’s the problem here?
Can’t you see I’m lying.
Can’t you see I’m lost in fear.
Man up boy, shake off those feelings.
Take on the challenge of dirty dealings.
Respect me, fear me, and do so silently.
And grow up hating every part of me.

19/01/202226/11/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: family, fears, smokeTags: art, cockney, dad, drink, family, father, fear, hurt, joke, papa, poem, Poetry, rascist, rhyme, slang, smoking, time, whisky 12 Comments