Particular illusions

A result of you burning our bed.
I lie on the cool grass and watch out for comets.
Racing from Olympus to Paradise.
I pulled off the ropes and entanglements.
Escaping with my life, but not my soul.
Now these clouds that cover the milky way.
Blotting out the moon.
Are really the smoke from the ashes of our home.
Yet suddenly you appear, covered in moon dust.
With starlight diamonds in your eyes.
And you take my hand, and tip the sky over.
Shaking out the stars.
Promising me treasure to be found from our ruins.
Blinding me with Midas light.

14/05/202201/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: heaven, moon, treasureTags: art, clouds, fire, galaxy, heaven, heavens, hurt, light, love, moon, olympus, photography, poem, Poetry, sky, treasure, universe, weather, writing 16 Comments

When you think about your life, I surround you in a gentle sympathy

Oily hands which pin warnings to the walls of your paper cathedrals.
Closing their eyes to the view of sorrow.
It stretched before them, and under your skin.
Cool, when not engulfed in such flames of disgust.
Little cracks in stone, slowly crumble pillars of discontent.
The columns that held our gods too high.
Out of reach, on the horizon.
How can we touch the finger of god.
When we choose to crawl on swollen bellies.
Pick the needle which will penetrate the precious heart.
Kept in glass, and passed down and around but never treasured.
Wake up those angels which sleep inside.
Do not run and hide, from a future which began yesterday.
Tip the grey to another shade and shake out a song.
One which can be played at any funeral.
Signalling a death of something, and the beginning of such wonder.

10/03/202208/03/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: angels, death, treasureTags: angel, angels, books, church, death, future, god, heart, life, poem, Poetry, precious, ruins, skull, treasure, wonder 2 Comments

Checkers and chess

How to topple the king who wears the crown so royally.
Moments and magnesium fill the place of diamonds and gems.
Wrapped in much fool’s gold.
And the crown heaves down, rubbing red and raw.
Check
A life long-lived with much regret.
Check.
How you turn on the heels and fled.
To learn a life in which to lead, we watch while others succeed.
Little eyes through holes in fences.
A voyeuristic violation into their little galaxies.
That swirl and sway like the black in the white.
Changing from dismay into delight.
And you take this horse by the reigns, and lead me through the forest.
Through the clearing of my ill begotten ways.
Out of the woods, out of the storm.
Peppering poppies that fill my lungs with such poisonous perspective.
And show me.
That I had been asleep all this time.

09/02/202226/11/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: chess, kings, treasureTags: art, board games, checkers, chess, crown, diamonds, drugs, flowers, king, life, poem, Poetry, poison, poppies, queen, woods Leave a comment

Reaching roots

How deep do these roots need to burrow?
While the wind of the world shakes and batters.
Down deep, past dinosaur bones and bits of myself.
Long forgotten memories and names no longer remembered.
Roots of strength, yet they strangle the small and struggling.
Little sprouts of new dreams which begin deep in the dark of my soul.
Waiting, for just the tiniest flash of light.
Yet the roots need to be strong.
For it’s much further to go on.
And this tree is desperate to reach up to heaven.

13/10/202107/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: heaven, treasure, treeTags: art, bones, devil, dinosaur, dreams, god, poem, Poetry, rain, storm, storms, tree, wind 2 Comments

Palpate

To make you consider that what I see is real.
To crack this skin like a mirrored pain.
A reflective love dancing on the wings of happiness.
Clouded and scorched.
Licked and honoured.
A crumpling vision of everything.
Vibrating into trauma.
It’s now tapping now at this skull.
Did I force you to reconsider.
What treasures remain.
Whether it’s me, happy inside you.
Or just a vast ocean of pain.

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Taken from ‘Everyday Nightmares – out now

04/07/202104/07/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: heart, heartache, treasureTags: blood, delirium, happiness, heart, kiss, love, poem, Poetry, precious, treasure Leave a comment