Keep a light on

Those juggernauts cry to a halt.
Bearing the machines of our love, they slowly die.
Not a collide or a collapse.
I wanted to see it for myself.
To take pictures of that ruinous pageant.
The end came before the goodbye.
Lost in the arms of another.
Eyes forced shut by the glitter in the tears.
Your pain cascaded into mine.
Fading through the line, stretched over distance.
Crawling from the wreckage, I promise to keep a light.
Burning long into the night, and my own car on the road.
Blazing into the dark, offering you hope in the distance.
Where you hide all of our feelings.

20/08/202214/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: fire, flames, hurtTags: art, burn, car, collide, crash, dark, distance, end, fear, fire, glitter, hurt, light, love, night, poem, Poetry, road, tears 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

The Hawthorne Project (out now)

The neighborhood of west Hawthorne Drive in quiet Greenfield Wisconsin is filled with dark stories and darker rumors. There’s the haunting by a faceless creature. They’ve all seen it. They’ve all experienced its presence. On the one hand, it seems to desire the life of mortals, on the other, it befriends a small boy. It both mocks and assists. Runs away and stands face-to-faceless face.

And not to mention the mysterious death of the street’s namesake, Jim Hawthorne. His strange and reclusive widow peers from behind her drawn curtains, rarely leaving her home, but to walk her little dog or tend her manicured gardens… yet she’s not one for giving up any of the cul-de-sac’s secrets.

But in the days leading up to Halloween, events take a more sinister turn, including strange visitations, an eerie violet haze in the sky, attempting murder, breaking-and-entering, and multiple police check-ins… until not one of the residents can deny: something or someone is here to stay.

Featured authors:

• River Dixon
• Chisto Healy
• Tristan Drue Rogers & Sarah Anne Rogers
• Lou Rasmus
• Mark Ryan
• Mark Towse
• Joshua Marsella
• Darren Diarmuid
• Robert Birkhofer
• Jeremiah Fox

OUT NOW

---

Goodreads
Amazon
LULU

 

28/10/202128/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: fiction, ghost, horrorTags: America, books, creepy, death, family, fear, fiction, ghosts, horror, native american, neighbor, neighbour, saga, scary 10 Comments

Fractured

Sweet pathetic eyes.
That shook away the fear.
In an empty heart, of a sad veneer.
Eyes, like broken mirrors.
Which steal the fluorescents.
And dulls my world of its needful essence.
I cannot repair, those sad eyes which stare.

27/06/202027/06/2020 by Mark Ryan Categories: eyes, hurt, light, PoetryTags: art, colour, eyes, fear, hurt, light, mirrors, pain, poem, Poetry, rhyme, rhyming 11 Comments