There there

I taste the powder on your skin.
The remains of the moon and ash of my soul.
Obliterated by the look in your eyes.
The ability to cut me deep.
And tumble my tiny empire.
In spite of everything, there’s still the stars.
And they sparkle now.
Hung up to light my way.
Swallowing galaxies like fireflies.
Tumbling in the dark.
I watch these words as they spirit from your mouth.
Driving new ghosts, to new ends.
Staking claims to old wounds.
Rubbed now with salt from my tears.
Collapsed into years, and habits that can’t be shook.
So let me cover you once more in feathers.
Taken from the bed we shared.
Whilst you kiss the air, and us, goodbye.
I watch you fly, deep into the inky night.
Disappearing into the gloom, like my hope.
Untouchable, all too soon.

09/06/202209/06/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: ghost, moon, skyTags: art, bed, black, fly, ghosts, goodbye, hurt, ink, lips, moon, night, poem, Poetry, powder, sky, sleep, stars 9 Comments

Hold it all in

Cocooned in a love that had died.
Brought to life once more in this time.
In a moment, connected not by space or matter.
But by the golden dance of hope and perseverance.
I’m on the verge of ecstasy again.
So I swallow it down, keep it all in.
The smile I suffocate with my lips.
Breathing in the heady acceleration of this future.
Trapping it in amber.
No words come from you, yet I hear your voice.
Within, spinning spiderwebs of trust and delicate touches.
Heaving my ribs to make way for the love.
Expanding.
Melting this iceberg.
Though this moment won’t last.
As I feel the morning rays creep over the windowpane.
Threatening today.
And tomorrow you my choose to go away.
Now is all that matters.
It feels, as I collapse into forever.
Washed in your eyes, the drenching of starry hazel plumes.
Making me divine.
So I keep you in time, trapped like beauty.
Forever.
Mine.

06/06/202206/06/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: future, happy, loveTags: care, dream]sun, forever, future, happy, hope, kiss, lips, love, poem, Poetry, time Leave a comment

Sovereign severity misplaced by an absence of form

Blood stained and bare.
My fingers smeared the colour of your lips.
Gripping, and clawing onto this love.
White knuckled, they’ve pulled at the loose threads.
Of a tragically imbalanced affection.
Unravelling the clothes of an emperor.
With an iron taste on the tongue.
And cold like the sun, I pull the feathers from my own wings.
Dropping them on the meandering path away from you.
Scratched by thorns, yet tied to the clouds.
Blinded by reason, and the light from surely an early death.
For the further I tread, the less I live.
Growing colder in your diminish glow.
And your indifference to our circumstance.

02/06/202202/06/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: clouds, departure, hurtTags: art, care, clouds, demise, emperor, hurt, king, lips, love, poem, Poetry, queen, roses, SOVEREIGN, threads Leave a comment

Eyes wet and open

Timid and quivering.
Frightened once more by the darkness.
The cave of self looms and lures.
Hissing out in words spoken from lips.
Those once thought as delicate and kissed.
Cracks appear, and the light vanishes.
Heaving of stone, that misplaced affection.
An internal echo of loneliness.
What threatens was the dismantling of love.
Held behind glass to taunt and tempt.
But never touch.
I love you, though I see the dagger.
And I fear nothing of the after.
Only the fact I shall be there alone.

26/02/202226/02/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, hurt, kissTags: art, death, eyes, forever, hurt, kiss, lips, love, pain, poem, Poetry, tears, words 6 Comments

Love is also hope

Breaths coming, like exhales from heaven.
Lapping at me like the tide of eternity.
I watch you dream.
Capturing the stillness, frozen in ice.
Long have we climbed.
Battling ourselves and the elements.
Shouting into the wind.
Now all around is still.
Silent like the first snow.
I taste you like that snowflake on my tongue.
Tasting of winter, and childhood memories of safety.
You whisper out, calling me into your dream.
Puffs of words escaping your precious lips.
Cracked open like an oyster.
The white hurries.
Ghosts vanish.
And you tell me, this was never a dream.

21/01/202221/01/2022 by Mark Ryan Categories: dreams, hope, loveTags: art, care, dreams, frozen, ghosts, hope, ice, lips, love, poem, Poetry, snow, winter 4 Comments

Some kind of stranger

There were stories of course.
Bad childhoods and frequent trauma.
Violence was like the rain, blown in like a storm.
But she did not live in the past too much.
Her story was colliding forever into tomorrow.
Wiping off the fever that electrified each night.
She had been beaten and adorned.
Wrapped both pearls and handcuffs around her arms.
Flesh was to be devoured.
Ghastly and exciting, making a mess in her soul.
She wiped away the blood drool.
What lay between her lips, her soul, her hips.
Was given by her own decision.
A consensual bargaining, for being alive.
For being a creature so prone to movement.
The survival of the imagination.
Her look that cuts the room.
The heart pierced by gloom.
Made her a provocateur for a classless age.
You would smell her on your sheets.
Crave the wet drip that smouldered still on your tongue.
But she would be gone.
Side stepping a fall from a grace she named herself.
Wearing her own crown, made of tinfoil and treasure.
But it will not always be that way.
The legs that part make way for opportunity.
Which always finds its mark, awash with indecision.
She was the girl that left too soon.
She was the guy who bought the moon.
And sold stars instead.
He is not one to remember fondly, his past indiscretions.
But shame had no place in his beautiful heart.
And his story starts, not with a departure.
But a glorious homecoming.

22/10/202122/10/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: sex, soul, womanTags: adore, art, blood, change, heart, kiss, lips, love, moon, night, pearls, poem, Poetry, rain, sex, soul, stars, storm Leave a comment

I ate the prayer

Layer after layer, through teeth and truth.
Bones that trip and slip under.
Down into the briny wonder.
I ate the prayer.
Closed the eyes, for tomorrow will never see.
Bring that illusion back.
Roll back the time.
Sucking up event horizons and riverbed pebbles.
Milky chalk to wash the medicine down.
I ate the prayer.
Laid out on copper plates and paper trays.
Flung from hell and the devil’s lips.
That kissed and took me under.

05/09/202105/09/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, prayer, satanTags: ate, devil, divine, eating, god, kiss, lips, poem, Poetry, prayer, religion, satan, sea, time, tomorrow, water 2 Comments

Take a bow

Nothing to fear, but the beauty unleashed.
As those velvet eyes unfurl for the world to shiver.
This collapse of an age, of a time now expired.
Blown into the dust of yesterday.
How heavy it must sit. The weight of youth.
Trapped in a moment, encased in expectations.
Those lips, sudden to crack like an earthquake.
The tuneful words scratch, like a raven’s song.
Beneath this magnitude, sits the one I love.
Grasping silently for escape.
I promise to take you away.
From it all.
From here.

12/05/202112/05/2021 by Mark Ryan Categories: age, beauty, kissTags: age, beauty, escape, kiss, lips, love, poem, Poetry, travel, wander, young, youth 6 Comments

Wandering star

These wandering stars shape the night.
Pushing out the darkness.
You weigh like dark matter.
Heavy and invisible.
Watching as the other stars dance.
Can I taste those nitrogen lips?
Just for a moment, in the vacuum of nothingness.
How you have travelled, lonely across our eyes.
Blinking in and out of life.
Pulling me like the tide.

05/06/201924/05/2019 by Mark Ryan Categories: Poetry, space, stars, travelTags: artist, dark, kiss, life, light, lips, love, moon, night, poem, Poetry, stars, travel 11 Comments