Aviate my liberator

Smother, suffer, succumb.
Lying in the snow drifts of my mind.
Covered in nothing and everything,
The weight of the world in it’s translucent sky.
Pushing down like an avalanche on me.
This is the truck stop of those dreams.
A terminus for the lonely, eager to get away.
I climb aboard my own tiger.
Push through the fog of souls who cling to that static.
Saving up for someday, though someday will never be.
Sprint, spring, survive.
Bursting out of the undergrowth, away from the desert.
Shaking the sand and the sadness from my existential shoe.
Everything will be okay.
I never had it all this time.
As the hand of the clock smacks my skin.
Bruising and bursting the flesh to find a way inside.
Reminders crawling underneath of a now, of a moment.
Which is all we really have.
I hold my breath, count to ten.
Throw away the screens and keep only what is needed.
Place soil in my pockets, so I’m closer to the ground.
Tears in my eyes, so the sea swells inside me.
A return to a place which spat out these bones.
The womb of the world, ground and the sky.
Strung up between the two, as the old me dies.

13/04/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: escape, life, snowTags: art, desert, escape, freedom, jungle, lonely, people, poem, Poetry, sky, souls, tiger, truck 3 Comments

Shadows on your eyelids

Scraping away the amnesia.
The skim of a time longed to be forgotten.
Yet not a distant past, but a painful present.
Gifting nothing but sorrow.
The lights have begun to fade.
Twinkling and dimming as if being submerged.
The chalky depths capture you now.
Tiptoeing you towards your apocalypse.
Towards our regret and loss.
If only we could drown the weight around you.
That poor thing that sinks in teeth as fragile as salvation.
Weak as the gap between us now.
Yet these acts of love pepper the sky.
Like dying stars that fill your eyes.
Shuttering and flashing,
Remembering a time when you were winning.
Tomorrow looms now like the Nullarbor.
Endless and lonely, threatening such unknown.
It sets into your bones and destroys your reason.
A tsunami to wash away dust and life.
The hand now clasps for hope and healing.
Pulling away just empty feathers.

05/02/202305/02/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, grief, hopeTags: art, death, desert, fragile, grief, hope, loss, medication, nullabor, pain, poem, Poetry, present, time, tomorrow, winning 19 Comments

Oasis swims

To walk the sands of time, to find the doorway to heaven.
Leaves me breathless.
You put your hands on this skin, and I succumb.
Unabated astral movements behind my eyes.
To know you from somewhere, is to feel you under my skin.
As my blood crashes down the sand dunes on the walls of my heart.
I left you, and found you there.
Waiting for me where the moon sinks.
Threatening never to return.
With honey wine still on your kiss, I will not function.
I slip into another consciousness.
Walking in a dream that quivers on god’s fingers.
Kiss me from dying, and wake me once more.
Let me disappear into your arms that comfort me.
Like a blanket against desert cold.
And I will wash these tears away in the pools of your eyes.
That offer such sweet safety swims.
To the desert floor.

25/01/202325/01/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: desert, eyes, kissTags: art, cold, comfort, desert, eyes, heart, kiss, oasis, poem, Poetry, swim, treasure, winds 6 Comments

Docked in dry sand

How can we be close to God?
When the anger flows.
Corroding inside out.
Does God bleed like me, with a fire in the veins?
Turning the petals of penitence to ash.
The devil can just read my mind.
Slipping underneath in the night like a snake under the doorway.
Yet I know I left the door ajar.
And a candle lit, to light the way.
We have wings, yet we walk through the desert of the day.
Complaining over each grain of sand we find.
And the pebbles of people in our shoe.
Hardening our skin to a lesser sin.
A dehydrated delirium takes me.
And these wings grow frail and dry.
And even though we try, we may never sail the ocean skies again.

07/01/202307/01/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: desert, Devil, god, PoetryTags: angels, desert, devil, fire, flight, flying, god, poem, Poetry, sand, snake, veins 22 Comments

Salvus erit

A coldness there.
Darkness, placing a hand on my skin.
These eyes close, transportation to a familiar place.
Touching me, the lonely.
Wanting to make an everlasting connection.
It swamps my lungs, and cradles me in arms of hollow bones.
Comfort in this awful place.
A room where I chose what fits, what goes where.
The ghosts mingle and float with intent.
Then a call, a gentle pull.
Like a vein slipping across a bone in motion.
The sounds of the desert, a shofar calling.
It’s triumphant song barrelling over my eyes.
Calling me like a flame.
God needn’t reside in the hand that pulled me out.
Nor in the eyes of the person offering hope.
For they are  the same, they are myself.
Smiling and pulling on the little red thread.
Lighting the way forward with tiny sparks.
Saving me from the depths once more.

03/10/202203/10/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: hope, light, lonelyTags: art, darkness, desert, flames, ghosts, god, hope, hurt, light, lonely, lonilness, music, pain, poem, Poetry, pull, spark, vein 1 Comment

A Halleluiah in the violence

The anger maketh the man.
Bleeding out the words that my head cannot contain.
Pearls for the poets.
Flowers for the loveless.
Laughter for the cynical.
They laugh with me now, the chorus of hyenas.
Eager to strip the soul in such violence.
And as the lion dies inside.
Little birds peck the eyes.
Dropping iron feathers to strip the goodness.
Tearing the history apart.
Like absence encased in an ice cube.
Swilling in the drink you hand me.
They watch every move I make.
Taking me and making me something which I’m not.
A spilt blood lamb.
A blood boiled Allah, fickle and fused.
Living long enough to become your villain.
Broken in bones and shaking to nothing.
Lying in your desert of love.
To be eaten by the angels that circle.
As my ghost escapes through my chest.
Out through your hoops.
Ending in a sigh.

12/09/202112/09/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: angels, animals, violenceTags: allah, angels, animals, birds, blood, desert, ghost, heyna, hurt, lamb, loveless, poet, villain, violence 6 Comments

Wichita eyes

In the night they burn.
Fireflies trapped in an amber jar.
Smelling the sand on my skin.
The dust-bowl offerings to a world of plenty.
Wichita eyes follow me.
Bar stamped and ready.
Hovering over something entirely.
Waiting to be consumed.
Where do you go now motel boy?
Burning holes through my skin.
Somersaulting in and turning my blood to milk.
The day fades away, blackening the eyelids of the young.
The eyes always ready.
Waiting for tomorrow.

21/01/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: eyes, self, travelTags: America, art, blackandwhite, desert, eyes, guy, motel, night, photography, poem, Poetry, skin, world, writing 6 Comments