A Dreadful something

Bridging across the expanse.
Brain before heart.
A dreadful something lurking in between.
We stumble, crawl, carry onward.
A fear in every step.
A freedom threatening.
The forest we left kept the darkness.
The sea to the north promising a drowning.
Loneliness our only company.
Hope our only guide.
Go forth and spit in the eye of Satan.
And love him for the barriers and trials.
Pray and wipe the spit away.
Keep stripping away the veils.
For the darkness and despair will not claim.
And he needs the most love, all the same.

28/12/202228/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: hope, satan, strengthTags: art, change, dark, darkness, devil, forest, hope, journey, monster, motivation, poem, Poetry, satan, sea, strength 4 Comments

Toujours en fuite? / Still on the run

Vous souvenez-vous, quand vous étiez jeune?
Les battements de coeur dans un infini.
Une seconde sur les lèvres de Dieu.
Pouvez-vous sentir la forêt?
Es-tu fuyant?
Disparu dans les arbres.
Quelle partie d’entre vous ne dort jamais?
Pour toujours rêver dans un monde où règnent les cauchemars.
Portez votre couronne.
Asseyez-vous, et lavez-vous dans les larmes cosmiques.

/

Do you remember, when you were young?
The heartbeats in an infinity.
One second on the lips of God.
Can you smell the forest?
Are you fleeing?
Disappeared in the trees.
What part of you never sleeps?
To always dream in a world where nightmares reign.
Wear your crown.
Sit down and wash yourself in cosmic tears.

05/10/202218/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: crown, escape, woodsTags: art, away, cosmic, crying, escape, forest, god, heartbeat, hope, independance, poem, Poetry, running, self, tears, trees 4 Comments

Lonely tree

In the forest, all alone.
My lonely tree feels cold as stone.
Surrounded everywhere by its branches.
That bend and twist to their own advantage.
They shake in the wind, and shiver in sadness.
Sunken in a disturbing madness.
Until one day you came into the woods.
Scared the animals and riding hood.
Yet the wolves they ran, and hid like rabbits.
Convoluted out of their own bad habits.
And into my glade you stepped so proudly.
And struck a match and yelled out loudly:
“Love is a flame that burns us under!”
And as quick as lightening, you lit me like thunder.
So my lonely tree, burned quick and sadly.
And I faded away, into death quite gladly.

27/07/202212/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, fire, treeTags: animals, art, depression, fairytales, fire, flame, forest, hurting, lightening, lonely, poem, Poetry, riding hood, sad, thunder, tree, wolves, woods 4 Comments

Threat

The folds of the future, on a serrated line.
Do not cross the marker. Don’t enter the forest.
A Sound emits from the belly of the earth.
This stirring rumble shakes the pots from the ledges.
Loud is the sound, as it travels under your skin.
Consuming you like tiny bears, fluffy and in your veins.
The forest was always out of bounds.
They knew what awaited.
Yet they built your houses right next to it.
Eye lines and heartbeats finding a mark.
They tell you to keep out, they warned you often.
But they lead you to the tips of the trees.
Tickle you with possibilities.
And so the inevitable.
The forest captures you.
The monster consumes you.
Plucking out the bones to play haunting tunes that drift on the wind.
A threat in the thicket.
The doom in the gloom that drenches like oil.
I found your bones of course.
I always knew.
Having much lingered on the other side of the trees.
Up high, having learned how to climb.
I see the monster, I saw the demise.
I know how it ends.

09/01/202207/01/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: darkness, monsters, woodsTags: art, bones, danger, death, earth, forest, gloom, monster, poem, Poetry, skin, threat, town, trees, veins, woods 7 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

The World beneath

Hold your breath. Count to ten.
Join the depths of the world beneath.
An inversed galaxy that never ends.
With lotus flower eyes you can see if you listen.
The aquatic hum of a sight leagues beneath your bones.
You are the octopus that crawled back to the sea.
The Sinking ship which will haunt the ocean floor.
Poseidon blood tingles in your veins as you descend.
To the world beneath, the silent watery grave where the weeds dance.
Each wave washes away your grey.
And every day your Atlantis awaits.

11/08/202120/07/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: PoetryTags: art, bones, death, fantasy, forest, grave, life, ocean, poem, Poetry, sea, ship, surreal, woods Leave a comment

Return

A life led well in good graces.
Smiling often, traveling places.
Banishing the darkness, only seeing the light.
Yet on the way she struggled.
Her heart and mind, forever muddled.
For in all that time she’d never found someone who was right.
People were kind, and she made them smile.
And she would stay for a little while.
Before the itch began to scratch underneath her skin.
Forever searching, but never finding.
That one to love, always hiding.
She wandered lonely still until a sudden call within.
Took her away from the crazy city.
The maddening pulse, of pride and pity.
And beckoned her back to the wild from where she’d came.
Through the trees and forests before her.
She made her way, the hidden eyes a stir.
Until she saw the tuffs and silk of a lycanthropic mane.
She felt at home in this new scene.
He wondered where on earth she’d been.
Reminding her that this had once been her home.
And in her smile there came a knowing.
A familiar feeling, a happiness showing.
That now back with nature, she would never be alone.

26/01/202126/01/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: nature, wolf, wolvesTags: art, forest, happy, home, light, love, nature, poem, Poetry, soulmate, tourist, travel, wander, wolf, wolves, woods 14 Comments

Raining underneath

Underneath. Down here where it’s calm.
Where the black beauty of the abyss touches my feet.
All is quiet.
All is still.
I’m entombed as if in a coffin.
Locked forever in my own space
Controlling the promise of my ever after.
And then you came.
Pelting my world.
Hurtling across like a comet in my stretching blue sky.
You bring the change, flowing through like a weather system.
Flourishing my eyes open like a new season.
Calling sub-oceanic flowers to bloom within me.
Aquatic forest pines that reach up to touch the surface.
To reach and touch your face.
My hands branch to catch the light you dazzle.
A sudden rush you instill within me like heroin bubbles in my blood.
Coming up too soon, bending my compression that has kept my heart safe.
Heading for the bends.
I’m a fish not born to fly with you.
High where the birds and angels soar.
Hidden in these depths for reasons.
For sins that keep me drowned.
Now it rains under water, puddling the pool of the sea that parts us.
And I drift in the stream of sorrow.
Knowing that the rain on the surface, is really your tears.

04/06/202004/06/2020 by Mark Ryan Categories: ocean, Poetry, seas, tearsTags: blood, bloom, comets, flight, flowers, forest, love, ocean, oool, pain, poem, poems, Poetry, rain, rains, relationship, sea, seasons, sins, sky, storm, tears 18 Comments

Solitude sometimes completes

Quiet is the night that falls into me.
Spreading the inky blackness all over my soul.
God smears it on my eyes.
The devil breathes it into my lungs.
Dark replaces lonely.
And as the moon crescents and pierces the void.
I stumble quickly into a knowing.
Dropping fear like shrouds of revelations.
Collapsing into a nothingness bliss.
Swimming in solitude.

11/12/2019 by Mark Ryan Categories: lonely, moon, night, PoetryTags: art, black, bliss, dark, darkness, devil, escape, forest, god, happy, isolation, lonely, moon, night, Poetry, pome, snow, solitude, swimming, woods 11 Comments