Your pilgrimage

I love your silver dressed dreams.
Those darlings, they call us all to look.
To peek and prod in an unforgiving time.
Hook your hate around my hand.
Thrown in the bag to drown.
Kittens, pebbles in your pocket.
You call this your pilgrimage.
A racing stumble through our great beyond.
But that was where I found you.
Heaped and tired, all covered in stars.
Can you walk the line?
Can you take some time to change?
Wrap this love around you heart, swallow and then re-arrange.
Your pilgrimage.
You deep mistake.
Your breaking through, my privilege.

11/01/202307/01/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: drown, love, starsTags: cats, change, drugs, journey, kittens, life, Pilgrimage, poem, Poetry, stars 6 Comments

Lazarus

The memories had settled, like a layer of dust.
The sediment of life.
All quiet, only snow making a descent to disturb the spirit.
Time washing their feet.
Soaking it in like a golden virus.
Lining the lungs with platinum.
So easy to remain unmoved.
To close the eyes and drift away.
For the birds to lift the life out through the window.
But it was there still.
The pebble in the mind.
The needle in the side.
A notion of incomplete.
A spot of milk on the sideboard of the soul.
The eyelids flutter dustily.
The mouth parts slowly like the red sea.
A miracle come in to being, of a body that moves with hope.
Of a yearning to do, what it still does not know.
Lifting out of the dream.
To do what it was put here to do.
A completion, before it moves on.
And knows what it does not yet know.

17/12/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: dreams, life, soulTags: art, death, dreams, dust, gold, Lazarus, life, living, poem, Poetry, resurrection, snow, soul, spirit 4 Comments

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

Little wounded wing

Little wounded wing.
You never knew how dangerous it could be.
Flying through life as you were.
Hoping others, like you, wanted to sing.

Little spark of light.
No one told you how maddening it would be.
Existing how you are, so special.
The rules never showed you how to fight.

Life it took a hold and stained.
Into your feathers and soul it pained,
you to see how this world really was, behind the lies.
Through maligned and deceitful eyes.
After wandering your many trails, deserving of fairness and love.
The world is dark and mattered.
Cruel and harsh and tattered.
To a creature who sees the good in everyone from above.

Little broken heart.
We all told you how not to cry.
No one cares for water spent.
The gulf between us now so far apart.

Hey little dying bird.
You told yourself in the end.
The only thing that was missing, was love.
And love was the only thing they no longer heard.

19/11/202222/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: birds, change, deathTags: bird, birds, change, crying, dark, death, despair, feathers, hope, life, poem, Poetry, tough, wings 4 Comments

Kill them with kindness

The wind blew her northward.
Desert dry and frigidly barren.
A mind thirsty for something tasted before.
Spent, but ready to burst again.
Like a leaf on the breeze, planted where she fell.
Pouring paint into the world.
Cracking open other skulls to sneak inside.
Planting diamonds.
She came like Christmas.
A Beautiful pageant of lights and colour.
Soaking up the grey.
Uprooting the cemetery stones that stuck up like teeth.
She polished them like new enamel.
Dressed in the same clothes she was to be buried in.
She was like you or I.
The same skeleton underneath.
Yet she was different.
Feeding the animals in her mind that roared at life.
Acting like it was all a circus.
Until she floated away again.
Up and out of sight, out of hand.
When her work here was done.

19/10/202218/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: circus, crazy, kindnessTags: animals, cemetary, circus, crazy, creative, diamonds, fish, fun, grave, happy, imagination, kindness, life, nature, poem, Poetry, surreal, unique, woman 4 Comments

Black box

The block box held a human heart.
Clothed in bone and skin.
And within, through poked out holes.
It watched the world come and go.
Locked away for their own safety.
Hidden from sight to save the pain.
For love had ruined him time and again.
Threatening and early grave.
It hides a world you would not want.
Nor a state you would ever wish to be.
The eyes, maddened, would bore a hole.
The heart, saddened, choked off from love.
Source of its life.
The black box sits in the corner.
The insides slowly rotting.
But the mind, never forgotting.
The one that put him there to begin with.
And the one who would join him there in the end.

27/08/202230/08/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: dark, death, sadTags: art, black, coffin, dark, death, ending, heart, hurt, insane, life, mad, pain, poem, Poetry, sad 1 Comment

Shell of imaginary imagination

Caught in the tangled weeds of busy nothing.
A mind fraught and frayed in the vines of life.
I wait for god to cut me free.
To untangle my mind.
Yet in my sleepy weariness I hear.
A starlight voice that tickles the back of my neck.
And turns each shake into a shiver.
God whispers.
It’s all an illusion.
Your garden is your own.
And the demons are just voices.
Trying to find new homes.

27/08/202215/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: Devil, doubt, godTags: art, demon, doubt, god, life, mood, poem, Poetry, sea, shell, sleep, star, starlight, tired, voices 4 Comments

Tidal

How high to stem the breaching tide.
That washes daily into our lives.
A rise and fall, with horrific force.
Split and cut right through our course.
And though at times it seems sublime.
It slowly soaks with turpentine.
A drowning water in our lungs.
Of life’s debris, while Satan hums.
And watches while we slowly sink.
God’s dye is cast, a deep red ink.
Which covers us and pulls us under.
Ripped from mercy, cast asunder.
And so we land in bits and pieces.
Choked on truth, strewn on beaches.
And watch while new shores rise and peak.
A brave new world, in which to wreak….havoc

09/07/202211/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, life, seaTags: art, god, human, life, ocean, poem, Poetry, posion, red, rhyme, satan, seas, tide, truth, water, wreak 4 Comments

Retreat

I cannot go outside.
They will not see.
I lock the doors and turn the world down.
Set the moon to wake me, so I can dance in the dark.
They cannot know, they should not look.
I came to disappear discretely.
The void is my own.
Yet a consequence is not from a lack.
The love and respect weighs me down more than you will ever know.
But I have to go, I have to depart.
Sailing out on silent ships that leave you all in fog.
Not a death, not a dim.
A recapturing, of self.
Until I’m stronger to hold back the waves of the world.
Stronger, to survive the sun.

18/06/202208/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: moon, ocean, seasTags: dark, deaprt, death, departure, escape, fog, life, light, moon, ocean, poem, Poetry, retreat, sea, travel, world 12 Comments

Death is little more

With all this talk of heaven.
Lapping at your feet.
Washes only the surface.
Never flowing deep.
For inside the bones are rotten.
And the sins stain and swell.
Redemption is forgotten.
Perpetuating this hell.

04/06/202201/06/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: heaven, hell, lifeTags: art, bones, change, dali, feet, heaven, hell, life, poem, Poetry, redemption, rotten, talk, tide, wash, wave 3 Comments

Typhoid and swans

Summer days with rain.
A tearing at this side.
Spilling petals and ruin.
A Day with the night.
The moon, coming into view pocked and dusty.
Out in the ocean, cast into life.
Waiting for the smile to flow from a sentence.
Communication, then nothing.
Nothing, then communication.
A constant pulse of anxious disregard.
Release now, free of feelings.
Feathers dipped in oil.
Diseases and love that swallow like a lake.
To eat off of chipped china, filling stomachs swollen with greed.
And such need.
To scrub away the blood that stains.
The candy stuck in the tooth.
We are all but sticks floating down the river of life.
Passing through the weeping willows of the world.
Making our way to swamps, not seas.

18/05/202207/05/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: change, life, oceanTags: art, change, communication, day, food, life, meal, moon, ocean, poem, Poetry, seas, swans, water Leave a comment

Everything (सर्वेषां स्वस्तिर्भवतु ।)

When the world wind weeps around you.
May the universe dry your eyes.
And happiness make you smile once more.
Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu.
I cannot keep you safe from the conflict.
Or the wars within you.
But I offer you peace, from that of which I’ve known.
Sarveśām Shāntir Bhavatu.
You are taken from the mountain,.
You come in pieces.
And I too, but together we are more than less.
Sarveśām Pūrnam Bhavatu.
And if you fall, I will not catch you.
But I will watch as you rise again.
And applaud your strength, with an outstretched heart.
Sarveśām Maṇgalam Bhavatu.
We are but pieces.
Love is the is the whole.
Versions of the same form, spun from the same gold.

26/03/202220/02/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: angels, church, divineTags: angels, form, god, gold, hope, life, light, love, mantra, mountain, poem, Poetry, prayer, reborn, tears, war 1 Comment

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

Prologue and the promise

We took a dream to a land we did not know.
You closed your eyes and disappeared.
Let loose of the gravity that was holding you.
We wanted to be anywhere, somewhere.
With orange juice skies and the smell of peppermint.
To forget is to disappear.
A war which rages in our absence, devoid of our participation.
Kills the sky and marks the earth.
But here, in our land of other, we drink a dream.
Soaking in the manna and the marrow of the bones we wish to be.
The chiming sweet chorus that facilitates the soul.
A world that blankets the old.
This is our now, our future our place.
In which to wake from the dream.
To shake the soot from our space and reclaim what was meant to be.

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Taken from ‘Alchemy’ – out now

17/02/202217/02/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: departure, dreams, futureTags: adventure, art, beginning, dreams, eternity, future, land, life, love, poem, Poetry, sky, sun, time, together 4 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

Quiescent (because of you)

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QUIESCENT

She tried to save him on that day.
That day, when the coffee stained sky folded.
She reached out in her own way.
Only for her hands to turn to stone.
And her mind to dust.
A cruel trick of fate positioned her.
To watch his demise from such a vantage point of safety.
Silenced in an eternal knowing.
While a tempest raged in her eyes and mind.
So she threw it all back in time.
Crouched under her bed until the voices left her.
With bangs on the door and within her heart.
Which now thundered to a singular beat.
Then the vines crept up around her veins,
and she erased her broken kingdom.
At least she tried to.
Then disappeared into the rains that then came.
Leaving no trail in her wake, only questions.
And the angels covered her in mercy.
As she chased the dragons by the flooded lagoon.

MORE VIDEO ART HERE

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11/12/202106/11/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: dragon, kingdom, waterTags: art, dragon, eyes, girl, kingdom, life, mystic, ocean, poem, Poetry, sacrifice, spoken, spokenword, video, vines, water, woman 2 Comments

Modern life

Stanley wanted nothing more.
Then a pair of new trainers, like the boy next door.
So he went to the shops and emptied his pockets.
But some coins, a tissue and a small toy rocket.
Could not amount to the high priced brand.
And he was asked to leave by the security man.
So Stanley went away for a while.
But then came back, with a cheeky smile.
And he stole those shoes, from right under their nose.
And wore them home, in such comfortable toes.
But alas, this was not the end for Stanley.
Who began to steal things, to feel more manly.
He moved on to televisions and peddling dope.
At only 15, he was beyond all hope.
Of ever being on the straight and narrow.
Hitting the underworld, fast like an arrow.
Now he runs with a questionable crowd.
Who only ever think out loud.
And cannot be trusted as far as thrown.
Poor Stanley I fear, has never grown.
So don’t be surprised if you come across him.
Shoplifting in Tesco or shooting up with a grin.
For if you try to talk, or have a rescue plan.
He’ll flip you the finger, and steal your gran.

07/12/202107/12/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: crime, life, youthTags: burningpoetry, crime, dangerous, life, materialistic, modern, poem, police, rhyme, shopping, smoking, tv, youth 7 Comments

Typhoid and many swans

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TYPHOID AND SWANS

Summer days with rain.
A tearing at this side.
Spilling petals and ruin.
A Day with the night.
The moon, coming into view pocked and dusty.
Out in the ocean, cast into life.
Waiting for the smile to flow from a sentence.
Communication, then nothing.
Nothing, then communication.
A constant pulse of anxious disregard.
Release now, free of feelings.
Feathers dipped in oil.
Diseases and love that swallow like a lake.
To eat off of chipped china, filling stomachs swollen with greed.
And such need.
To scrub away the blood that stains.
The candy stuck in the tooth.
We are all but sticks floating down the river of life.
Passing through the weeping willows of the world.
Making our way to swamps, not seas.

MORE VIDEO ART HERE

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13/11/202128/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: change, disease, lifeTags: art, change, communication, day, disease, food, life, meal, moon, ocean, poem, Poetry, seas, swans, water 4 Comments

Life is a circle

A tragedy laps at this water’s edge.
Dark oily waves.
Flotsam of time scattered.
Moments bobbing in their crystalline freeze.
Like jewels sparkling on the neck of God.
Broken Christmas decorations on a dead tree.
How do you see?
This water, once pure, travelled around the world.
Circled and familiar.
Dipping your mind in to see this all before.
Teaching you again, yet you choose to forget.
Life is a circle.
It comes around, reminding you over and over.
What to loose, what to cherish.
To drop away what pulls you down.
Looking in to see your own reflection.
When you should hope to see the face of god.
For the divine is a alive and breathes through your skin.
Yet we forget, the states we are in.
Beginning at the end, missing the arrival as we depart.
Life is a circle.
It starts and ends in your heart.

10/10/202110/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: change, god, hopeTags: beginning, change, christmas, circle, end, god, hope, life, motivation, poem, Poetry, tragedy, travel 2 Comments

Washed over me

This stream of thought.
This river of time.
Washes over and feels sublime.
I watch the world as it drifts on by.
A passing ripple.
A distant cry.
Yet I have drowned in these moments passed.
Lost now forever.
For nothing lasts.
And though my body floats on the tide.
It’s only a reminder.
Of how all life subsides.

29/09/202109/08/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, life, waterTags: art, cleanse, death, life, poem, Poetry, rhyme, river, soul, spiritual, tide, water 8 Comments

Little wounded wing

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LITTLE WOUNDED WING

Little wounded wing.
You never knew how dangerous it could be.
Flying through life as you were.
Hoping others, like you, wanted to sing.

Little spark of light.
No one told you how maddening it would be.
Existing how you are, so special.
The rules never showed you how to fight.

Life it took a hold and stained.
Into your feathers and soul it pained,
you to see what this world really was behind the lies.
Through maligned and deceitful eyes.
After wandering your many trails, deserving of fairness and love.
The world is dark and mattered.
Cruel and harsh and tattered.
To a creature who sees the good in everyone from above

Little broken heart.
We all told you how not to cry.
No one cares for water spent.
The gulf between us now so far apart.

Hey little dying bird.
You told yourself in the end.
The only thing that was missing, was love.
And love was the only thing they no longer heard.

MORE VIDEO ART HERE

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25/09/202111/08/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: birds, change, deathTags: bird, birds, change, crying, dark, death, despair, feathers, hope, life, poem, Poetry, tough, wings 12 Comments

Skeletons in the sky

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SKELETONS IN THE SKY

I hear the angels whispering to me, quietly in my sleep.
Loudly when I wake.
Cracking my skull like an egg.
Dipping their fingers inside.
This life.
Sun shined yellowed and fresh.
Stretched out and taut like a lamb on the rack.
Hurried time, and love spent.
Empty like a tramp’s bottle.
You gave me the promises you couldn’t keep.
Tucked under my mattress for the day it rained.
Waiting for the monsoon.
It poured, and I was washed away.
Washed out to sea like sardines and ship wrecks.
So I wait now.
For that dark sky to open up and swallow me again.
Suck the light from my bones and spirit me away.
Like skeletons in the sky.
Solar pirates for the soul.
Yet gone before it happens, before the decay.
Drifting in the cosmic sleep.
One you can’t undo.
Until I wake to discover, you loved me too.

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11/09/202113/08/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: angels, skeleton, spaceTags: angels, art, body, bones, earth, god, heaven, life, poem, Poetry, skeletons, skull, sky, sleep, space, travel, universe Leave a comment

Occasional ruckus

Wrapped in the 21^st century.
Shattering all trauma.
Which built against little empires.
Punching blindly in this fight for life.
Yet asked not to kill.

Die a little.
Crying happiness.
Lying slowly.
Counting stars.

Face first on the concrete.
Unwrapping the other side.
A tidied dream of destroying how it was.
The questions move me to new terrain.
Setting fires to light my way.

03/09/202102/09/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: change, fire, tomorrowTags: anger, change, dying, empire, fight, fire, life, lying, poem, Poetry, stars, survive, time, tomorrow, world 5 Comments

Delayed doxology

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DELAYED DOXOLOGY

The pain turned to gold as the moon rose.
The loss of self-control and the shedding of time.
Dropped like leaves over a diamond lake of soul.
Always late, but now just on time.
Peeling away a skin that once bound.
A body so rooted in the now.
To each side there sits an angel.
Close enough to touch.
Calling me higher, yet I remain.
Being good, being whole, being of service.
The dark begins to melt into light.
The kiss of god, and the whisper of the divine.
Reaffirms my mind, that it all was meant to be.
Now I shudder in doxology.
Praise not just the creator for the air in my lungs.
But the lungs of god, which breathes new air.
I have lost my religion.
And found god where I least expected.
Hidden away, yet smiling at my fall.
Knowing the rise was good for all.

MORE VIDEO ART HERE

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14/08/202128/07/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, night, prayerTags: art, body, god, gold, kabbalah, kiss, life, light, moon, poem, Poetry, religion, skin, space, tree 6 Comments

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