sleep

RED #4: A methemoglobin state of prayer

A half-light silently wanders into sight.
It’s the beating throb of the world.
Now masked in shadows which crept out of us while we slept.
When the ghosts departed.
A dying embrace of an old lover.
The bottled words of a mother who told us to keep out of the road.
While we played, with such abandon, in the town.
On the steps of a church whose windows we’d smashed.
This lumbering giant of trouble, draws our blood.
While we stretch out our hands now in prayer.
To a god no longer there.
All in the shadows of broken mosques and beloved vampires.
Which we willingly idolize.
These empty hands reach for a comfort.
Waking up in pain.
Bruised and bloodied like knees of school kids.
Us in our youth, climbing the tree that hung over the stream.
Dripping the merlot drops into that crystal clear water.
Blurring our own reflections.

Take you apart

To pull open your world, and sneak inside.
Tearing out your heart, giving you mine.
Feeling each rise and fall of your chest.
Would lay me out like gold.
Each breath conquers me.
As you lick your lips.
Suggesting that is where we build our home.
On the tip of something beautiful.
We’ve cried out our past.
Knocked down each remnant of uncertainty.
Covering our delicate present in feathers and down.
For this is where we shall collapse.
And watch true love collide.
Collecting it up in a bucket of flesh and stars.

21/05/2019 by Mark Ryan Categories: kiss, kissing, love, Poetry, starsTags: art, conquer, feathers, flowers, gold, heart, home, house, kiss, love, poem, Poetry, safe, sleep, stars, world 7 Comments

Shroud

Awaiting for the darkness to pass.
For a sting’s throb to relent.
Deep in this cave of uncertainty.
Where the buzz of doubt floods and overwhelms.
Yet there is a peek, a gentle stab at the white veiled sleep.
The sunshine finger of light that inquires into the bowels.
What beneath the shroud is alive or dead?
The smell of decay sits too absently now in the air.
You know what was buried there.
For you killed it with your departure.
Yet as the birds sing their larkening song.
That threatens a spring in winter.
So too the shroud is awakening.
Dropping its ghosts and mangled possessions.
To breathe and live once more.
And taste the April showers and life’s new blooms.

25/11/201821/11/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, hope, Poetry, winterTags: art, bloom, cave, change, death, decay, flower, hope, hurt, life, poem, poetry, sleep, spring, winter Leave a comment

Between the jars: ‘In space we dream’

‘P’erl’ came the voice. Softly, like a snowflake landing on her ear. Her eyes were closed still, she felt the webbing around her body, keeping her in place. She was hesitant to open them, such dreams she’d had, and they were in danger of slipping away if she opened her eyes. It was so rare for her to sleep, and when she did, the night flashes came, robbing her of any peace. She was unusual for her kind. The rest of Europa never had dreams, never suffered the nightmares of other worlds parade across her mind like she did. Calling out in despair and anger. She’d learned not to sleep. She had learned a lot just to live.

It came again ‘P’erl’, a little stronger; this time the other side of her head. Her eyes flickered apart and scanned, she found no-one there. Her room lay beneath her empty and quiet. She hung up in the rafters, encased in the white webbing that held sleep, and dreamless sleeps for everyone but her. She knew the voice now, she had known it before. Her inner self telling her, it was time to go.

They are coming back....The lady of the jars and girl from Europa. New entry coming soon. To read the previous installments check out the story so far.

10/11/201810/11/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: Poetry, sci-fi, sleep, spaceTags: alien, dreams, europa, galaxy, magic, nightmare, planet, short stories, sleep, snow, space, story, writing 8 Comments

Awakening

Light into the fearless high.
Put those things to sleep.
Leave your cancer, learn to fly.
Death of memories on repeat.
Did you hear these voices calling you to be?
Those voices, in all of you and me?
Did you hear…..
….an awakening to be free?

15/09/201815/09/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: butterfly, free, freedom, Poetry, sleepTags: cancer, dream, escape, fly, free, freedom, high, hope, memories, poem, poetry, rhyme, sleep 9 Comments

A pressure and strain.
This heartbeat struggling to remain.
Heaving to the sounds of a new beat.
The deafening drums of retreat.
Cast out of heaven by devilish hands.
Told to be quiet, sit and understand.
But I cannot remain, so far in and so deep.
Just bury me now, for eternity’s sleep.

01/09/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, heart, heartache, Poetry, sleepTags: art, death, funeral, heart, heartbeat, hurt, pain, photography, poem, poetry, rhyme, sleep 4 Comments

Weep then Sleep

They say, the world almost drowned.
The day she wept.
Those salty tears, so sacred and immaculate.
That the ground began to crack, like the conscience of god.
Crumbling into sadness.
For she was so young, and now forever lost in her madness.

27/08/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: crying, flood, god, PoetryTags: art, crazy, crying, god, gods, madness, poem, poetry, rhyme, sad, sadness, sea, sleep, weep 8 Comments

Heroin(e)

Fire crack cackle in hushed shadows.
Little fingers about to be cut off.
What you say makes me shudder.
A creeping shiver left at the side of the bed.
A mind now full of kitty litter.
With the life looking and an ache to scratch.
Weakness, tossed out like surprise.
Sweetness that came in like a hammer to the glass heart.
Lick me up like spite, with a malice reduced down into silver spoons.
As I fall away from you.
And watch you choke on words and not loneliness.
It moves now in to post-blue passive aggressive.
Feeling the testosterone in our bones.
Angry, because you wanted it this way.
Embattled and emblazed with the world shouting us as well.
Waiting for the silence to once again smother our fires.

05/06/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: abuse, fire, freedom, PoetryTags: anger, art, bones, feminist, freedom, kitty, poem, poetry, revolution, shadows, sleep, women 7 Comments

I suddenly feel it

Under the floorboards it dwelt.
Dipped in diamonds.
Hard as nails.
A love that painted the corner of my planet.
Washed over me like black rain.
You creep into my bones like golden dust.
Strengthening and sturdying my soul.
This past is left in the darken room.
You turned off the light for memories that kept me awake.
No more grave digging in the sunlight.
Stopping instead, to smell the flowers.
Picking eternal daisies in the dirt of time.
Forcing me to be x-static, extreme like violence.
You are the colour in my skin.
Awash with happiness deep within.

19/03/2018 by Mark Ryan Categories: light, love, Poetry, soul, soulmatesTags: art, diamonds, gold, happy, kiss, light, love, planet, poem, poetry, rain, skin, sleep, soul, soulmate 11 Comments

Anywhere else

I want you to remember.
As you struggle to breath.
While you shake and crack, and wither within.
Close those eyes which hang like dying stars.
And dream.
Welcome in the disassociation.
I’ll hang the universe on you while you sleep.
Remembering where it all begun.
You and the stars will fall silent.
Drifting once more into the beyond that calls to you.
Which has always called, but you’ve never responded.
I want you to remember.
All the things I feel.
All the ways the memories form like ice around your eyes.
A Siberian shift into summer songs.
Flavoured voices caught in the air and on your tongue.
Try and remember.
Which days to savour, and which to let go like planetary balloons.
Floating out of your solar system.
As you fall into now.

09/11/2017 by Mark Ryan Categories: Poetry, sleep, stars, winterTags: dreams, eyes, frozen, ice, memories, planets, poems, poetry, sleep, solar, stars, winter 2 Comments

As the city sleeps

Still waiting for the big revelation.
Be prepared for anything, but do you still believe?
Dreaming of big distractions and carbon copied lives.
Left with diamond headaches and pills to make you sleep.
Don’t sleep, dream. Let it in.
Kick start that desire that you are just as good as God.
Good as gold even. Counting zeros on a monthly slide.
They call you the king of commodity.
Hanging on the end of the line.
Hanging onto anything.
Smear the sugar on your lips and catch the bees.
Be prepared for the sting.
Close your eyes as your tongue lolls over.
Cityscapes and supernovas.
Mercury swinging in to shift the traffic.
Allowing you to arrive more easily.
Sleeping another day away.
Swimming in medicated decay.

24/10/2017 by Mark Ryan Categories: city, drugs, money, PoetryTags: city, diamonds, dream, drugs, future, god, gold, lips, money, poems, poetry, scifi, sleep, society, travel 2 Comments

Skyward pines

Under the trampled feet of the ghosts of the forest.
We lay in the soil, safe for a century.
Soaking the world in.
We turn away from forever, looking into the eyes of life.
Shooting skyward.
Oceans away from the city of conformity.
An exquisiteness that waivers every day. At the whim of the winds.
We are the pines.
Skeletons in season, breaking beauty as we trail the atmosphere.
Still as the tomb of tomorrow.
We watch the forest shiver and shake to a human beat.
Still with a taste of god in our mouths, breathing in his breath.
Dancing in the darkness as the world sleeps.
These pines.
Waiting once more to be cut down by those seeking our answers.
To get at the truth, down in our roots.

26/08/2017 by Mark Ryan Categories: earth, Poetry, sky, treeTags: beauty, earryh, god, growth, human, pines, poem, poetry, season, sky, sleep, tomorrow, trees, truth 3 Comments

Enabled sleep

Lay me down with the tinkling of glass.
Those little fellows with their chalky mouths.
Grinning at an untold joke.
Keeping their euphoria to themselves.
The night suffocates, yet refuses to devour me.
Leaving me bitter and longing for sleep.
The jealously of the slumbered ripples across my skin like the cold.
It happened today, wearing my tiredness on my sleeve.
Welcoming rest and dreams within dreams.
Yet it won’ come.
Like an un-landed flight, I circle the skies in my lumbering state.
Creaking the fuselage with my tectonic groans.
Swaying in the night sky full of stars.
I manufacture a restful condition, listening to the world settle.
The universe put to bed and still.
They return, mother’s little helpers with their permanent smiles.
Swallowed down. I’ve been so high.
Aloft yet well-travelled.
There is nothing wrong now, I just needed to believe.
Dive into that waiting white surface so cool and clean.
Landed. 5am.
Grounded.

24/11/201624/11/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: drugs, Poetry, sleep, starsTags: dream, drugs, flight, pills, planes, poem, poetry, sleep, stars, time, travel 4 Comments

Fluorescent future

4am as the world whispers me awake.
All is calm, and the night travels in my veins still.
I slept the day away.
Rubbing the tiredness and memories from my eyes.
Half a world away, yet right where I started.
Right where I belong.
The veil is yet to be lifted form my shaded stay.
Talking to me still from the past in a language I slightly recognise.
Talks of entangled vines and harkening songs.
The red land beneath my feet.
Sticking to me like sand on wet skin.
Rub away these English oaks. This chitter of festivity.
Don’t lead me blind with your patriotic stories.
Colour me sunlit gold and let me sleep.
Crying into the night.
Drifting away on the tide.

23/11/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: future, Poetry, sand, seasTags: beach, christmas, england, Fluorescent, future, jetlag, moon, night, patriotic, poem, poetry, sand, sleep, time, timezones, tired, travel, trees, writing 5 Comments

E#

Play me once more, that chamber music of my soul.
Tickling your fingers on my ivory heart.
Such intimate behaviour.
No release.
Like wild roaming beasts.
Trampling through my forest.
Bear me no mind, cause me no trouble.
Such wild bird emotions you set free each time.
That you whisper my name.
That you call to my heart.
Shivering down each vertebrae.
Snap at the heels of my passion.
Feathered in the down of where I lay.
Where you leave me trembling.
Shaking in the thoughts of your behaviour.
Crying out for mother earth to swallow me again.

20/11/201630/10/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: music, Poetry, soul, woodsTags: birds, forest, kiss, love, music, piano, poem, poetry, sleep, soul, trees, woods, writing 4 Comments

Photosynthesis in retrograde

8pm. Half awake.
Sonic ringing in my skull like sonar.
Crash through your words that splinter.
Deadening my star.
Sweeping up my sparks.
Picking the petals of me into nothing.
I curl back into tomorrow.
Soaking in the dew of innocence.

13/05/201613/05/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: flower, light, Poetry, starsTags: flower, light, petals, plants, poem, poetry, rain, sleep, sonar, sparks, star, sunshine, time 5 Comments

You led me here

I woke, 4am; leaving nothing but my shadow asleep.
Making my way through the skeletons, through the tick-tock clocks.
My delusion is on the rise. Seeing you there, I know this must be a dream.
So I look up, and the dark sky collapses.
I shrink into the sweet toothed boy I always wanted to be.
You wear your suspicion like a badge, and you find me out.
Your maybelline eyes sink in like teeth, pouring my over.
‘Oh this heart’ you cry. Reaching out for something, reaching out for me.
But this place doesn’t need me. This is the sinking feeling I try to escape from.
Have tried to escape from all my life.
Remember, I have only just begun to understand.
I wanted you to be wrong, I wanted to be right. I wanted something I will never have now.
Shaking out the bruises that appear on my tongue, I spit out the apple peels that land at your feet.
You scoop them up like pearls.
You brought me here, you called to me to save you.
I cannot save but a tiny bit of time for myself, there is no hope for you.

15/04/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: escape, hurt, skeleton, timeTags: apples, clocks, creative, dream, dreams, heart, hurt, love, pearls, poem, poetry, skeleton, sleep, teeth, writing

04:45 Tomorrow

Though the dawn sings out a new chorus, I cling to the night.
It is in the dark we dwell now, secure in our insecurities.
A post-blue anesthesia.
Slipping down from the dopamine shell.
The tiniest crack, the smallest splinter.
Down to the floor where we freeze like winter.
The swan song of our lifetime, yet only 26.
Clickety click.
I dug my own grave with you last night. You did the same, yet watched me do the heavy lifting.
The look away and the tiniest frown, makes me feel incapacitated.
Resting on a gravestone, stroking a soul.
Licking words that you toss my way, crunching on the crumble of forgiveness.
We build the tomb, and plant the seed.
Blacked eyed beans and coffee kernels, salty tears that stain.
Who is she anyway to you?
I go home as the night slips into dawn, erasing the loneliness and feelings of terror.
Come seek me where I dwell, scrap off the shells and dying roots.
Tell me you love me, and mean it. Please believe it.
Sinking into tomorrow, today.

28/02/201629/02/2016 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, ending, soulmates, time, winterTags: coffee, creative, dawn, death, dopamine, drugs, grave, poem, poems, poetry, seeds, sleep, soul, time, tomorrow, winter, writing Leave a comment

Across the sky

Though the universe spins on your finger, though the moon sets and falls in your eyes.
I can see the space left in-between us, the road of good intentions and tries.
As the ghosts settle into their cupboards, and the demons hide under our bed.
I will drip further into your madness, caught up in your dramatic cobwebs.
For my soul is no longer loyal, it betrays my need’s for yours.
It would throw me into the ocean, to further the movement of your oars.
As your little boat heads towards Neverland, and my truth falls down to sleep.
Into your dreams I will tiptoe, blind to the wonders so deep.
I renounce my agnostic position, I bow to every whim you command.
I will crucify my own indignation, through the flicker and twist of your hand.
Because all I want is your happiness, to germinate from our love and our light.
That is why I cling like a barnacle, to your boat and your soul so tight.

29/09/201530/09/2015 by Mark Ryan Categories: galaxy, light, love, moon, poems, Poetry, sleep, writingTags: adrift, boat, galaxy, love, moon, neverland, ocean, pan, poem, poetry, relationships, sea, sleep, stars, story, writing 3 Comments