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Selected Poems
by David Stuart Ryan

Part Two


These poems are an introduction to the work of David Stuart Ryan. Others are selected from the seven books that make up his poetry series
SEVEN WORLDS

It investigates the nature of each of the seven worlds of existence.

    The seven books which comprise SEVEN WORLDS are:
  • The Sphere of the Moon Goddess
  • The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon
  • Post Book from Around the World
  • New New World
  • Home
  • Another World
  • Seventh Heaven

Links to the other parts of this collection of David Stuart Ryan's poetry.

Part One
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
There are also some poems from his latest collections in progress entitled Observations and Galactic Federation Dispatches

To find out more about the writings of David Stuart Ryan see Kozmik Press.
Free chapter from India - a guide to the experience visiting the holy city of Benares (Varanasi)
First chapter of Taboo - a modern romance set in Holland and Germany
A chapter from Looking for Kathmandu - Peter and Birgit arrive in town and at the Blue Tibetan get invited to a rather strange party.
The first chapter of The Blue Angel - the life and films of Marlene Dietrich.
Poetry from The Cream of the Troubadour
- poems by David Stuart Ryan, Home Cronyn and the sayings of Ganesh Baba.
Colva Beach, Goa, India.
A graphic description of three months at Colva by David Stuart Ryan.


Index of the poems

To see any poem listed in the index simply click on the title of it.

Once you have read the poem, click on 'back to Index' to return here.

This is your electronic poetry book.

You are also invited to vote for your favourite poem, the selections will be printed later.


One day you will drown The age process
The face on the amateur video Hitler's spell
The dinosaur line Evolution
From where we came Hints of other epochs in the South Seas
To belong The land and its lure
The old soldiers
Essences Award winning poem on the coming of spring
Top cock Beach bum struts his stuff
Tomasi Spring stirrings
The door England's ancient pilgrimage centre at Walsingham, Norfolk.
Half lights over form The forgotten small hours of night.
The Garden of Eden Intimations of the natural world.
This Place Intimations of other worlds
Josie, the golden retriever
Recollection Aboriginal Australia
Glem Igge Migh The artist as lover
Leaf on a tree A vision of life whole
Riding the waves Water skiing at sunset
The nightlife of the cat The sensual animal world
Four in the morning After the poetry reading
Power Naked in the desert mountains.
For Nicole (Pour Nicole] All at sea in Greece
The blind man's liebeslied Love song
You will only hurt a while Night music
Venice Beach sunset The passing show.
A wave on the wild sea A young woman's dreams.
Stick up at Mohave Pass An encounter in the Arizona desert.
The end of the road The apocalyptic end to a 12,000 mile journey.
Cecile By the Amsterdam canals at night.
That love spring The arrival of a temptress.
To make love Gypsy woman stargazer.
This is goodbye. Farewell to Kathmandu.
One perfect day A day in the garden of Nuremberg Castle
Beauty seen Afterwards
She The feminine.
The world is sad, waiting A meeting in Herat.
Pipe in the night. Spring rain.
World Before setting off round the world.
Conundrum The relationship stripped bare and brutal
Praise in the dark Up all night for the dawn.

One day you will drown

It was the first sunny day of long winter
Your birthday.
With welcome surprise I saw the house sparrows
Under the eaves
Busying themselves building the new year's nests
With quiet purpose.
All the frustrations of winter had been allayed
By instant action.

The poet's words came back, Yeats speaking clearly
Even immortally,
'A life without intensity is a bleached-out poor existence
Easily snuffed out.'
The weak winter sun was playing down city streets
With a low-slung light
That blanked out the confinement of buildings and gave
Blinding illumination
Where people appeared out of nowhere with a smile
And were gone.

We spoke of the illusion brought on by fear of losing
Possession.
All around accelerates and desires should find outlet
In warmth.
In the cold we shrink within, achieve too much distance.
She has lost a breast
In old age, which comes to even her of a legendary beauty
Sixty years before.
Young breasts are moulded to be fine-lined sculptures
With expectant teats
That speak of wishes clamouring to be heard.

Music comes forth
You are lost in the great surge into the unknown realm
Of harmony,
Of aching and yearning, eyes with a depth of deepest ocean
Well within the waters
Rising steadily to the top of the earth where they will overflow
And one day drown you.

London and Amsterdam

From Seventh Heaven.

Return to Index


The face on the amateur video

The man is getting out of the open car
A big handsome tourer from the thirties.
The place is Austria, the occasion a triumph,
The people have voted to a man to join him.

He wears a loose baggy uniform of no shape
Slowly walks from the car along the cobbled street,
People come and go like will o' the wisps
Moving with a clockwork manic energy.

Only one face on the amateur video looks real,
A dark brooding presence that takes in all,
Does not move above the ridiculous flapping garb,
Is permanently wreathed in a gloating sureness.

It is the face of satanic knowledge fully and fatally alive
Pleased to see every person does as they are bid
Aware that power such as his can launch a thousand nightmares
To destroy the fragile delicate webs of common humanity.

Adolf Hitler in Austria, 1938

From Observations.

Return to Index


The dinosaur line

The alarmed flutter of the starling's wings
Exiting from the shed
Gives the game away.

I watch the bird devour the fledgling robin
Piece by little piece
And then a final gulp.

The nest has been torn to shreds,
Feathers litter the shed floor,
Were once a cosy womb.

Two more of the dead lie among the strewn leaves
Powder dry and dusty,
There is no sign of life.

Clues to the carnage are scattered there
Flower pots tumbled about
A plastic water sprinkler.

It would appear a night prowling cat
Has done the angry damage
In a fit of petulant rage.

The black starling returns to dig the garden earth.
Searching out those not its kind
Is a perpetual need and drive.

In the angular beak of the robin's skeletal form
Were lines tracing back to when pterodactyls
Flew the earth, grown huge on rich lushness.

Sanctuary is never complete, is open to attack
From any quarter,
But other springs and summers come.

This year the spring has not seen young robins fly
With fettle from their warmth
Out into the cold of hunter and hunted.

From Observations Return to Index


From where we came

Memory lingers long here, long as the sea
Has washed shores, submerged moutains,
Drawn back once more. The hills have been washed
Smooth and curious; today we thrive while remembering
That far distant time of grace, every action has
A distinct reply, we only try this life to recollect
The instinct of peace, accord with time season land.
Such a strange country, outcrop in the ocean,
Standing sheer lapped by the circulating sea, blue
Waters everywhere around, no matter, indulging ourselves
We attempt this almost forgotten rhythm of our natures.

Nandi, Fiji Islands.

From New New World

Return to Index


To belong

And pausing to hear the quiet wind,
Lose the throb roar of the whirring motor.
Flat grounded colours, grey green, white trees,
Horizon far, flocks small, sheds shanty.
Pure washed green and blue about,
For three generations poured out
Soft and lush between scarpment blue hills.
Quiet laughing place, long distant, not gone.

Rupanyup, the Wimmera, Australia

From New New World.

Return to Index


The old soldiers

Hello. Hello. Here we are again
We're fit and well and feel as right as rain
Never mind the weather
As long as we're together,
Hello. Hello. Here we are again.

Bapaume to Albert. It's a road some ten miles long.
We went by way of Thiepval Ridge, Pozieres,
High Wood, Delville Wood, the Pope's Nose, the Quadrilateral.
Names to you. We knew every sodden, blood sodden, blade of grass.
It was the the most expensive journey of the nation's life.
Listen...you can still hear the guns if you try...listen.
'The battallion will attack at seven thirty, precisely.
Your task, gentlemen, is to take the enemy's front line.
At all costs'.

We were sailing along on Moonlight Bay
You could hear the voices ringing
They seemed to say
You have stolen my heart,
Now don't go 'way
As we sang love's old sweet song
On Moonlight Bay

We lost more than 20,000 that first day, the first of July.
In the evening the rattle of their death agony was a screech
Like nothing you have ever heard, out there in the dark.
A constant nerve pulling wail while the guns thundered.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Stop it! Stop those bloody guns! My pal's out there! Shell shock!
You can tell the look in the man's face, staring wild eyes.
It was murder out there, shell fragments decapitate
Mutilate, dismember. Machine gun fire can cut a man in two.

If you were the only girl in the world
And I was the only boy
Nothing else would matter in the world today
We would go on loving in the same old way
A Garden of Eden just made for two
And nothing to spoil our joy.

We're all volunteers. My, how proud we walked
Down the streets of London town after joining up.
Pals joined together, stayed together. My, how we trained.
The gun horses were lined up, gleaming in their brass.
The troops were all set to go over the top, the finest,
Then the guns started.
Some blokes were blown to tiny bits, the horses' guts were strewn
All over the place. We charged, the bullets buzzed like bees.
Your pal falls down on the left, the other on the right
I dived for cover, a shell hole, a bullet caught my calf.
I crawled back. Just.

It's a long way to Tipperary,
A long way to go,
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know.
Goodbye Piccadilly
Farewell Leicester Square
It's a long way to Tipperary
But my heart lives there.

Sometimes you lost more of your battallion then you kept,
In one attack. Imagine, 150,000 dead by the time
The mud brought it all to a halt. 450,000 wounded.
Men with no legs left, wounded. No arms left, wounded.
Casualties of war.
War brings out the best and the worst in men. I shot him
Before he shot me. Later I wondered about his family,
Where he came from. He was the first German I'd ever seen.
He was a tough fighter was Fritz. Take no prisoners
They kind of told you.

Three German officers crossed the line
Parlez-vous,
Three German officers crossed the line
Parlez-vous,
Three German officers crossed the line
They fucked the girls and drank the wine
Inky pinky parlez-vous

We fought the good fight. After the Somme there were more battles.
Till that day we broke through, gained miles instead of yards.
You have never known the flush of victory, have you now?
Lost now, aren't you?
It was the war to end all wars, they said The best died,
Have no doubt of that, the finest of two generations.
What was left for you, what could you hope for? Not much.
Leaders gone, aimless drifting, that's your lot.
You would think you lost.

Hello. Hello. Here we are again
We're fit and well and feel as right as rain
Never mind the weather
As long as we're together
Hello. Hello. Here we are again.


Return to Index


Essences

The estuary of the sea has filled, now it empties,
Why do grey blistering clouds smother a weaning new moon?
The pale crescent blows swirling in vapour above curlew trees.
This is still evening's hour, it is announced the joy will be soon.
Watery promises of the sky fill sea waters
The middle is set solid, a dark mound of wet earth,
Below bubble waters containing changing moods, an altar.
The waters cannot speak, they feel; cannot affect a swan's worth.
On mud flats the heavenly swan waddles, its soft prints
Are left, but majestic the swan returns with the ingress
Of the sea, now floats white in blue crystals under moonlight glints.
The white faced sea batters old rocks by the castle's ruins, progress
Of the breath of all contained in sea surging, presences
Of night's unuttered knowledge, grey upright stones were left
On middle England's plains, old man guardians of messages
From the Milky Way's beyond parts, for doubting men to accept
As time's hints of sublimity at the end, such dwells
Deep within announce the trillion stars glistering freshness
On the hollow earth; ravished the earth was, cleared of summer's swells
Gouged out flooding colour flowers, rich sweet leaves, those excresences.
To purge is to sweep away all the loose stuff in life
Till returns the underlying harmony of strength.
In so old stones, so old, so old, is rough strength, the hues grow rife
On the return of the spring waters, for time is the waters' length.

Kingsbridge, Devon, England.

From The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon

This poem was an award winner in the All Nations Poetry Contest, 1975

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Top cock

Chickens cluck
Cocks strut and crow
All show
But the hens know
He's right
Last night
He really showed them how.
Cluck, cluck.

Colva Beach, Goa, India.

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


Tomasi

Above your head
Brown red
A satisfyingly blue sky
Fringed by succulent green leaves.
Your soft pressable pink lips
Your olive skin
Tanned in winter.
The moon is washed pale
Is growing
Is like you

You are crying for the dead
The lake is May breeze clear
Your running is fast dashing
Your hand clasp is so soft
Your smile is warm.
Your enjoyment
Your threshing
Your playing
Are entirely a product of the spring.

From Another World

Return to Index


The door

The door set in a large flint wall
So small you must stoop to enter,
But the wooden steel strengthened door is locked.
Beyond are the peace filled gardens
Which have lain there for centuries.
A woman walks across the street
With two black dogs, slowly searches
For the key, lets you come inside.

From far, the road to Walsingham
Has led across a countryside
Open to waves of light lit clouds
That surround the old way. Chapels
Beside the route bid you enter
Make the last part of the journey
On foot, here a great sudden force
Can leave you dead before your time.

Through the cluster of still bare trees
A tower peeps up over the hill.
The used track bends a few more times
Leads down to a small green mossed well.
You wander around the broad walls
Of the sanctuary, faces
Hang from the heights telling of the
Wearing down that dogs all our steps.

Through a crack in the wooden gate
A scene undisturbed by strangers,
The arch stands still and beautiful
Curving slowly to a point, peace
In the garden, outside pilgrims
Wandering as you leave impressed.
When is the proper day to come?
A young woman smiles and enters.

From Seventh Heaven.

Walsingham, Norfolk, England, a place of pilgrimage since the time of William the Conqueror.

Return to Index


Half lights over form

Take happiness where you can
- and is this your happiness?
I am crying for your sadness
Give a strangled scream of fear
Yet would lie down to forget
In a soft held hand caress.

Doors open and shut the night
Casting half lights over form.
You open and shut to receive
A knowing of your value
Hand moving slowly aside
From the tufted fine lined lips.

An end to the ancient fears
And a gentle sweet singing
Sighing at the rich pleasures
Of the forgotten quiet night
Temporarily abandoned
By those who seeks its uses.

How long must you amused guard
An unknown certain knowledge
Perfectly still like the earth?
I dive clothed into a pool
While with your green branch you push
Away in a welcoming embrace.

From Seventh Heaven

Central London.

Return to Index


The Garden of Eden

There's a pig in the Garden of Eden
And a stream that finds the way to blue sea.

We were facing the coal fire flames
I said, 'Let's go away from the clean,
The warm, the comfortable house,
Let us go where it is cold, and wet, and alone
With mud and dirt.'
'Like my hand?' she asked.
It was smeared with the dirt of coal.
'Shall I wipe it across your face?'
Yes, I took the black hand,
Smeared the pure marks across a pallid face.
We fetched our coats, went out in wind and rain
To search for the Garden of Eden.

On our walk past houses, a paper mill
A farm, the cold rain ceased, the wind blew calmly.

We found the Garden.
The other side of the pig field hedge.
The pig was a mother.
The stream we had to cross twice
To reach our fold in the green, mud-brown ground.

Her hair was wine-dark hanging over a small bush.
In the twilight her face was soft flowing white,
Dark intense eyebrows, crystal pure green eyes.
Hot light came from these awakened eyes.
In a small fold with two trees and the leaves
Of a winter daffodil, we felt each other's skin.
Lips met in the sumptuous green and blue of twilight.
Her wine-dark hair brushed all round me.
I saw, I touched, I kissed her wine-white belly
With all the colours of twilight.
I consumed the round pink of her breasts.
Before we joined in the Garden of Eden.

New Year's Eve, Devon.

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess


This Place

Wherever this place is, I recognise it,
Or its strangeness.
Behind your head is a black eternity
Lit by lights.
They are globes travelling the darkness
Of the inbetween,
While your face has the penetration
Of sudden shock.
In the distance, in the night, thoughts
Ricochet violently,
Two faces transmit quite without words
All the future
Which may be the past, for our footsteps
Trod the momuments
With their proud treasures of civilisations
Very knowingly.
The long echoing passage between the worlds
Waited for a face,
On it would be written all its lives
Like a book.
Or is it in your look? which says wait
While I think
On whether this time I wish to plunge
Into night music
And come out the other side as untrammelled
As wisely knowing
As before.

From Another World

Return to Index


Josie, the golden retriever

The road ahead, as on the common, is hid in mists
Coming down suddenly out of nowhere, shrouding
Familiar places in an ethereal light, hints of an end.
An end to walks to a lake that once brimmed with
Water and plants, unspoilt, a perfect place to paddle
While black rooks in birch trees flew loftily overhead.
The lake mysteriously emptied in the hot dog days
There was less reason to go there, not like the large lake
Full of new geese and goslings, cygnets and swans
Swishing and flushed with the new life of early summer.

At winter's approach there was even less reason
To visit the lonely pond undisturbed by any man,
Looking for sticks thrown from the far bank
It was a place to be perfectly at home in the quiet
The chilling winds forgotten, the long summers
Still in prospect, but the mist closes all about.
In January the diagnosis is bad, the strength
Ebbs away as has the water from the solitary pond.
Last walk to the apple tree in the garden
Last looks out at the sky and the world beyond
At a time of its own choosing a sudden call
And you are gone, gone from the land you
So intimately knew and understood.

Josie, born 4 August 4 1984, Wales,
Died London 18 January, 1997.

From Observations

Return to Index


Recollection

In this most personal period of a life
Year taken out, chance to recollect
It is no great leap to go back
To when your race was rife
Upon this flat belly land
Our past ancestors met
Not here but inland amid hatred strife
Before you came to view
Yourself as fallen not elect

A great disaster links us, family clan cast aside
For many a long year, waiting for this call
'Come out your hide, head for an open air ride'
About the land, in the pastoral plains, all
A man could wish came true, only music may tide
Our souls to sweet content, this music can only stir sweat enthrall

So the newcoming race has not found peace or claim
To the earth, your didgeridoo sounds huskily abrim
With wind dry ground, adapted, not having your shame
At its birth, you blame a convict for your present sin.
Those heavy eyes were worked in stone and who may tame
Such a low dwelling earth spirit from the free throb of the wind?

From New New World

Melbourne, Australia, meeting with aboriginal woman

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Riding the Waves

Fortune, you've turned on your head once more,
This evening a peace wafts the cool waters,
Space of the ocean in darkness, beyond the shore
Flying the dark deep, with speed that never falters
The aching heart may find its rest in sunsets
Riding the waves thankful for what it gets

From New New World

Suva Bay, Fiji Islands, the Pacific

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Glem Igge Migh

- Don't Forget Me

In a day we lived a life, your life with my life joined.
Now separation, once again the paradise retreats into its whole.
the setting of your room is still paradise, now we no longer see.
We wished it and thus it happened, we have made the only exchange.
I leave you my seeds of love and you knowing this have won.
For learning to take we learn to give,
You have given me life in other form, my recreation
You are now no longer who you were.
We have grown a temple to love between us
We have been true artists
Now again human we fear to enter
The perfect lines of such a temple.
As your art, it is too sudden to create perfection
In one swoop.
You will not believe - and I with you -
We alone know and breath into life beauty.
But the temple stands there, still, outside of time,
Even if we never return it will remain - perfect.

From The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon

Copenhagen, Denmark

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Leaf on a tree

You fell into my talking arms on a hot summer day.
The sun shone warmly, you noticed laughing in your amused way
It to be brighter and more restful than other weather.
Now you can see from my room at sunset how together
That tree is, pierced with light, in place.
Our lives could be like that, in order, we with no grimace
To make at the last connundrums, being not asking, whole
Not diseased by pride, not seeking accepting, each our role.
The world gathers itself to rush into a new age,
About us, signs to read, the leaves at the tree's top are sage
Do not ask from where they come or where they go, are content
To exist in light and endless change; if we could repent
Of our errors and wrongs, we too would see the happiness
With us, long forgotten, our troubles mere contrariness.
For the leaf it is sufficient to grow healthy full strong
To breath in the sun, when night comes it only takes our wrongs.

From The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon London

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The nightlife of the cat

I travelled by plane, bus and train
To my yellow house by the river
To find cats making love at the foot
Of the stairs leading to my bed

Bruised, battered and beautiful the she cat
Comes through my open window to lie down.
Feet, padding as softly as a lover's hands,
Knead my willing flesh into budding form

Songs reverberate from my heart, the waters
Of the river flood over and through me,
The clear open sky speaks of all possibilities
And I weave charms to carry you to me.

Fredrikstad, Norway

From Observations


Four in the morning

Four o'clock in the morning
And the day has just begun.
That bird on the aerial
Is singing mightily and lustily
To the blue grey breaking dawn
And us emerging from the cocoon of night.

A night of poetry and content,
Soft sounds from the edge of the known world
Wafting us all to a friendly meeting place
Where wine and intoxicants wake the brain
From all those old stale habits
That keep us tied to the unreality of the past.

Now it is a new day, a fresh day
All the long night there were exchanges
Of confidences and hopes and wishes
With no one around to disturb our view.
The mint new day is waiting for any impression
We care to make upon it, it is reborn and entire.

A reading at the National Poetry Centre, Earls Court

From Observations


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Power

Fading into night she goes weeping, running bare and brown
Along a dried river bed she hurtles leaping from crown to dusty crown

In blue bare mountains two presences shout at the silences
She crouches in a gully, a man stands above her making no allowances

For any weaknesses of a human soul; in despair she hurls rocks at his form,
She fears contact at all with him burning with the heat the desert's worn.

He comes slowly down the slope of rolling stones and says quietly,
'Don't attack me, instead love me.' In dusty time she leaves her old sobriety.

The Persian Desert.

From Post Book From Around the World Return to Index


Pour Nicole

Les mots sont trop petits pour une personne qui aime la vie,
La mer, la lune, le soleil et l'amour assez bien parlent.
Je peux toi comprehendre avec tes yeux, et toi moi avec ma music.
Alors, apres la nuit vient le jour, viens, viens a la mer.
Maintenant commence l'amour, dans l'eau nous sommes libres.
Tes yeux parlent, je responde avec la chaleur, viens, viens, donne a moi.
C'est bon, c'est bon, tu as un coeur comme moi, c'est bon, tu ris.
Je laisse mon amour avec toi, ceci tu sais, merci, vive vive la vie.

(translation)

For Nicole

Words are too limiting for the person who loves life
The sea, the moon, the sun and love speak far more eloquently.
I can understand you through your eyes, and you me through my music
After the night comes the day, come come to the sea.
Now begins the loving, in water we are set free.
Your eyes speak, I respond with heat, come give to me.
It's good, so good, you have a heart like me, it's good, you smile.
I leave you my love, this you know, thank you, here's to life.

Thessalonika, Greece

From Post Book From Around the World Return to Index


You will only hurt a while

If you are one of those who hears music
During these, our brief happiest times
You will be more than used to playing
The rhythms of midnight's chimes.
More than used to the unspoken agreement
That begins with a look and a start,
There is no need now for words
When you can sit and be your own art.
Up till now you have been learning,
Soon you will go out learned to teach,
Up till now you have been instructed,
Soon you will explore and extend your reach.
The transition between certainty and doubt
Is a time for letting go some of the past.
What will remain is of use to you,
What drops away was simply unable to last.
If I tell you now at the beginning your duty
Is to develop, grow and become fertile
With all the half ideas trying to enter the world,
Do not be sad, at the most you will only hurt awhile.

From Another World

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The blind man's liebeslied

The blind man from the pub is out singing,
The sweetest apple, he sighs, is soonest to sour
And all love must someday die dismally,
After that talk in the pub your words are ringing.

Are you to say the still unborn are to die?
That the first faint intimations are to join the debris
Scattered in this road where China's symbol
Of immortality has begun its long attempt to fly?

All words are lost in the region of sense,
Music drowns out any analysis, including yours,
The Floyd played while you feverishly cried
Approaching the heights dripping woman's scents.

When the future crowds on in reality A hand stroking between your legs calling distantly,
Breaking down the opposites of duality.

Quite effortlessly the progress you seek
Will come with each bird clamouring day,
At which some will be ritually depressed
Fearing to climb when they are already so weak.

Some will die but many were never alive
As you passed by on your journey,
At every stage more will turn back hopelessly
But what of you who has seen the peak for which to strive?

From Another world

Return to Index


Venice Beach sunset

Down by the soft sea where the gull waits
For the tide to bring to shore tiny titbits
The sun is going down framed by tall palms
The only sound, the roar of the advancing waves.

All along the line of the seashore shadowy joggers
Go through their evening slow unwinding run
Tuning into the end of another sun filled day
Out to sea, a dolphin upends its flash of tail.

"Look out there!" the woman cries, just released from jail
Taking in the sights of the long gone natural world
"Watch the tide doesn't get those shiny shoes."
She is gone, away into the warm sunset, gently jogging along.

Back off the beach the forensic squad take photos
The LAPD woman has seen death's dark shifts
A gun barrel is her reaction to any sudden surprise
The endless depth of her eyes shows past terrors.

A man with one arm propells himself on his skate board
He has no legs either but sings heartily to the setting sun
In the men's room a man sits face down on his throne
No doors here to interrupt the open public gaze.

Every van has pitched its tent in the car parks by the shore
The old tribes gather for the ritual of the sun set
The travellers at the bar listen to the up and coming Spice Girls
You can get high by the sea when the sun goes sweetly down.

Ocean Front, Venice Beach, Los Angeles

From Observations

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A wave on the wild sea

I am a wave on the wild sea
Driven by the wind towards the dry land
Where I will crash into oblivion
On his hard body in a surge of spray.

I am the rider of the strong horse
Plunging through the frozen north
Feeling his muscles bunch and drive
His beautiful form through forest woods.

I am a voice whispering secret thoughts
Alone at night in the comfort of my room
Drunk on poetry, pulsing with colour
Stretched out like a cat from the wilds.

I am a sigh surging from big breasts
Hotly breathing into an attractive ear
I am the lock that the key turns
And beyond is the endless sea of change.

From Seventh Heaven

Return to Index


Stick up at Mohave Pass

The hovering eagle hawks its greetings
High up in the Rockies watching for fleeting
Signs of life on the sagebrush ground.
Here in the mountains there is no other sound
The bird is company among the snowy peaks
Off on the horizon the meltwaters cascade down.

In the valley the road snakes westwards
Through the high plateau pressing onwards
To the desert lands where the tribes sell the right
To the mineral gold long locked away from human sight,
Yet promising to keep the mountains ever free
As they wear down into crazy shapes year by year.

Out there in the mountains and red deserts
Where the blazing sun's heat bakes and puts
A man's brain on fire there is no respite
From the history of a land where might
Has proved the arbiter of man's destiny
And ghosts walk by moonlight in the valley.

Dusty time, a thin blue haze, hangs in the canyon
Above the yellow brown rocks soft in sun's colour
Hard in moon's baneful light, thirsty
For rain that never comes, there is no mercy
Shown in the desert lands, only the slow grinding
Of the river from the mountain snows unwinding.

LIke a hawk a car appears out of the light,
Whirls behind the speeding traveller right
At Mohave Pass, in the broiling heat he steps
Forward to inspect his prey, this armed man lets
No sign of weakness show on his clean cut face,
Makes his hit in the heat of the desert furnace
While the ancient black mountains look on in silence.

The Mohave Desert, Arizona

From Observations

Return to Index


The end of the road.

Like death, it is a still dark evening.
This road I have reached at the end of journeying
Is as it was for the revisitation, only time
Has passed through, mostly in another place, clime.
At the still of twelve thousand miles, keeness
Of vision at entering this untouched blueprint.
It has always been here, I have by due dint
Of effort arrived back, no one speaks or moves,
There are no lights, the trees have a few more grooves
Within their sturdy trunks, they wave as if light.
I hear voices chattering, no they are not talking,
They are moaning, they are groaning at the fight
To let out expression. Two sensations of stalking
The desired release, the sighs roar down the road,
The Plough's stars delineate their direction, the goad
Of flesh seeking respite, the cries reach everywhere,
The doors remain shut, the rooms barred. I tear
At the old restrictions, curse, look for the Venusian
Triangle - the point of the crutch, the globes of the breasts.
They burn, they moan, 'Let go, let go, brush, caress.'
The car has smashed on the highway, he has left illusion.

From Another World.

Return to Index


Cecile, a song

Cecile, you were so freshly free standing beside me,
Your smile was warm, so warm, I felt inside your fire.
You came softly over to me and asked for words sweet as a lyre,
I can only sing you slowly as I drink you like honey from a bee.

Cecile the moon is watching, your sister is our guiding star,
Lie down beside the twinkling water as early starlings sing,
Come close enough to let your flesh gather me up from far,
I can only touch you lightly and slowly as my cup brims.

Cecile I see the sky turning to light above our heads,
Your breasts I have played into every conceivable glow,
The rushing pursuits of the waking city are invading our bed
\ And could it be that love for me must fly away when the sun shows?

Amsterdam.

From Post book from around the world.

Return to Index


That love spring

The days were long, the hours beyond number, the river flowed. The earth had ceased to be. Hidden she was under the winds of cold, the sleet of despair, broken slushy snows, hard frost. Enchanted life slept with her secret.

A year had died. Perilously lived the people within the shade of death. Having empty faith in spring, they found the dead earth not tragic, not profound. Unknowing, they halted their song of life, the harmonies of the breeding colliding growing germinating world. The withdrawal of life to a secret chamber meant little to their everyday lives. The sadness filled their hearts, the goodness in the dark. Wise men ascended snow capped mountains, wondered at the stars' clarity, tried to discover in death why life was certain to return.

Today spring declared herself. She was not as expected. The wisest men had done what they most feared, they had fallen in love with life's death, considered life's former history evil! Life, having no need to examine her course had lived exceedingly well, thriving multiplying enjoying, pandered lulled sated, amusing and enriching herself. She did not ask what was right, what was wrong.

Life had loved living, every part. As unhappy men examined her life and found her three quarters bad, she did not care if she were considered all bad. She exulted in living richly and wholeheartedly.

In the cold of their hearts men praised death. Today spring passed by, triumphant glowing unrepentant magnificent.

Before her eyes the river shone light. The clouds piled higher and higher on one another, each a colour of its own. Under the choirs of sunlit clouds amid the great greeness of the grasses she returned. Stroking her long perfect legs. Feeling her soft wet pulp vagina. Grunting and sighing, heaving and gulping, racing and slowing, vibrating, opening and shutting, clutching releasing gazing kissing smothering hugging. Spring appeared, to all she looked a harlot. So obvious was her enjoyment, so great her beauty, so magnificent her allure.

Spring was reviled by suffering men, tired women. Thrilling with a new life she came, they spat at her. She groaned her last groan. Her thighs fought with a vicious strength to stop the year ravishing her completely. The year finally, with the last throb of his penis, dropped his seeds of time into her womb. His straining arm forced the savage belly and thighs to fall back and yield.

No one knew the dark secret of spring as the union took place.

She had come pure, had given herself complete, now she must sometime die again.

Who could know on the first day of spring her dark dark secret of future death? Spring, only spring, knows how much she gives.

While those robot men call her a whore, she gives all!

From The conjunction of the sun and moon

Return to Index


Lips

You ask me of paradise, of where it is and how.
I'll tell you this, it's within you now, it's power
To give your self into a mirror of the stars
To see your self in this face no blemish mars.
The paradise is full of the perfect and if you should
Glimpse in my eye a gleam of heaven, cast out the wood
Eating your heart, forget your cares of shall we part?
Ahead in front of you is the other half, this the start.
Now you fly to other lands but you will return
As your fresh lips parted sweet you were to learn
We contain all the joy within so seek to let out
Some tiny measure of the stardust's shine, our love a rout
Of pettiness and meanness, something so strong we shout.
I press into your lips, once they were cold, now they part and pout.

From The conjunction of the sun and moon

Return to Index


To make love

I have never seen the stars like this through your sadness,
Only the lights in your jewel eyes are lights as clear.
Quite fitting it is that in sadness not frivolity we become one
Yours the secret to inflame me, I want you viciously.

When you have sat before me wise and beautiful
Gypsy woman stargazer so knowing and assured
It aggravates beyond relief when now you scorn me,
Now you hiss at me, I rip at your clothes to strip you.

You have tantalised beyond due measure with your knowledge
You must have much power to sit so calm on my bed
So unconcerned, so certain you control the strings.
Yours the secret to inflame me, I may tear you apart.

Many hours of mutter, argue, despair and bedevil.
You spring up and cast your clothes aside!
I match your hurried haste with positive relish
Now you take me on your magic ship.

The words we spoke, the gestures, the hints, the looks,
They were all nothing! You are dancing about me,
You and your pure form, lilting legs, glittering stomach, dashing lips, hot ardour.
I break into you, breathing abruptly and thirstily.

You unleash my power, channel it through your body,
Heave me up, cast me into your net, smother me, cocoon me.
I blaze into you, grunt roasted air in your skin and finally
Explode with a flash into another world you created from nothing.

From The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon

Return to Index


This is goodbye

The one word we cannot use is goodbye,
The hours of the day come towards their close,
In these streets we have walked happy, heaven knows
Tonight bands and red dancing girls do not ask why.

The god of greatness is bursting with flowers
Friends are smiling all knowing on this happy sad day
When we finally come together to softly say
The last words, music will fill the remaining hours.

Beneath your window they are beating the dance.
Your welcome is fit for a king, so welcome you make
The beginnings of love on earth, only give not take.
The night is heavy, let us wish well with the last glance.

Kathmandu, Nepal

From Post book from around the world.

Return to Index


One Perfect Day

Elizruth, Elizruth, Elizruth, twig bestrewed ground, Elizruth.
Lips melting, soft wet lips to love behind the red rose
Breasts to kiss until they rise, you want to love and this you know
Elizruth, Elizeruth, Elizruth, how you wish to know my name.

Jump jump jump your length and mine to the ground, Fall into my waiting arms, stride with your young grace
Follow and glide into the castle's garden, show me your face
One hour, one hour, one hour, we are as close as ever can be.

Elizruth, Elizruth, Elizruth, you breath hot and must show
Your young woman's budding, with your breasts you rise to kiss
The bringer of the green garden's life, now you will never miss
The music of the song of every day, we meet in morning, depart in evening.

Nuremburg Castle, Germany

From Post Book From Around The World

Return to Index


Beauty Seen

Beauty seen is not lost
Plume skin, head curls
Savage abandon, queenly grace
Rhythm from her lips' embrace.

Wordless the noble sings.
Eyes bright, hands smile
Two bodies with one glow of heat
Now sleep a loving sleep

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


She

She is twisting and twirling a kitten
Her long dark hair waves through the creature.
She is short holy scented pubic hair
The legs slowly open and she waits.
She is the thrashing earth of white faced ecstasy
In her eyes is the summon of a goddess.
She is explosions of flesh through flesh
Her body shakes in supernatural delight.
She is a star inside a moist eye
Her head falls back and she has flown away.
She is a familiar smile on strange faces
We say goodbye but only till tomorrow.
She is a girl watching sheep in a Slav field
Perfection for any man she smiles at all.
She is in all and perfection in one
The lips call me to her silent whispered love.
She recognises you as soon as she is seen
The smile is warmth and light and love.
She surrounds you in her glorious wealth
The trees bustle upward and outward, grow.
She is the smallest wave in a wild sea
The mother gives the son the breast.
She is the wind in the leaves in the tide
Her feet dance with the early morning air.
She must be worshipped in every human way
Her world is covered in scents and sighs and sparkles.
She is a woman of the lonely streets
Her lips are only practised in a kiss.
She is life and all its laughter
The game is played with children's laughs.
She is pure with a new moon halo
The land is unknown, far, enchanted.

She is hidden in twlight mountain mists
The dawn river rushes and carries her along.
She is a single feather from a white dove
She is the twinkle of the first evening star.

Kathmandu

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


The world is sad, waiting

She came
in an Afghan carriage
Asked me to take her to a room.
I was stupid
did not understand
her plight,
She saw
the servant drove her away.
Dear girl
so brave
the world is sad
waiting for your kind.

Herat, Afghanistan.

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


Pipe in the night

A pipe plays in the night
The rain falls
lazily
down.
I listen to the drip, drip, drop
Of the falling, falling rain.
There is nothing to write
I am happy.
Perhaps the happy girl's face
Her promise of a meeting
Has something to do with it.
I don't know
I am happy
And the rain is bringing
Water to a flowering earth.

Kabul, Afghanistan

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


World

It took me twenty four years to realise
I belong to the whole world.
That is a simple statement I make to you
So simple it might be wise.

In three weeks I begin to explore my birth
Of mountains, water, land, light.
I see now my many long days of childhood
There was ample time for mirth.

Wonder days of the young have no ambition
In alleys, on commons, near streams.
I was taught to be old, distrusting, cautious,
A training for postion.

The struggle to laugh among fearing faces
Is a struggle for the old.
Fear of the future will vanish with death's laugh
There's no fear for firm paces.

I was stopped exploring the world very young,
Teased with pride, envy and greed.
I was taught the savage tactics of old men,
Yet my body music sung.

Why should I fear an Arab, an Indian,
Any of the race of men?
I go young to see the miracle of life
Welcome all meridian.

Love freely given has taught me to be bold.
My loves grew quickly women
More quickly, than I, smug, grew into a man,
I was afraid, cold and old.

In three weeks I return to travel delight.
Young, I entered an iron gate,
Now again young and a man,
I pass back through the gate, feel like a sprite!

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess

Return to Index


Conundrum

You should not pay so much attention to what I say
In a car one night.
I have been wondering all the time if I should end it.
You are being too rational about our problem.
I can see you again in three weeks, my boyfriend is coming.
I can't have two boyfriends.
Perhaps we should not have made love.
I can't think about my relationship making love to you.
No I don't feel guilty.
Another time.
We'll talk about it, not on the phone.
Do you mind me going out?
My parents said nothing, my mother cried all day.
She says I've changed.
We talked about my career.
If I had found a better job I might have stayed a couple of years.
There is no future.
I have made a compromise with my boyfriend.
Have you ever been to the West Coast of America?
Genetics, he has a mentally retarded brother.
His father suffers from depressions.
I feel very bad not letting you.
We will go far.
How far?
We will get on very well.

From Another World


Praise in the dark

The time has come
In the night
Our agony is no longer distracted
So still dark and unchanging has the sky become
Memory of jewels set in technicolour sunsets fades
The serenity of completion
The joy of accomplishment
Disappeared into the all embracing sea
Liquid night
Unable to observe the work of the ant scampering in the sunset
Through the powdered plain over which a root of grass towers
No feeling of activity
Of common goal
The black night has ended everything and then itself has ceased
But something lives
You alone with your agony
Every hopeful sign has disappeared
Memory offers no consolation or certainty of a new day
Faith and belief
One stride into the dark
Even the comfort of your agony
The last remaining witness
Will disappear
Everything has ceased
So removed from the world you long
For dissolution into this nothingness
The sun set so quickly
The earth rushed on its head over heels course through space
Whirling us round to view the distant suns in the moon governed sky
You are now so still you can feel this heady circling of the earth
Up over the horizon show new suns and galaxies, Andromeda
Some of these lights are galactic communities
On the extremes of visible created space
Visible to us tiny atoms of the universal
Yet feel the unsurpassed perfection of that dark leaf of a weed
Growing in a crack between stones slapped on the belly of the earth
Those clumsy accumulations of bricks and mortar, glass and wood, plastic and metal
The painted white yellow cream pastel houses fill most the sky
Beyond flicker the distant worlds
Do you want the houses or the stars?
You can hide in your room enclosed
Removed from sign of life and growth
But the earth is unhurriedly gathering its forces for the morning festival of life
You are invited to the show
It will be as miraculous as you are.

From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess Back to Part One of The Selected Poems

Back to Poem for Today


What is your favourite poem?

Please enter the title and number of your favourite poem in the box below and then press submit to record your choice.

Later it is hoped to publish the ratings.

  1. One day you will drown
  2. The face on the amateur video
  3. The dinosaur line
  4. From where we came
  5. To belong
  6. The old soldiers
  7. Essences
  8. Top cock
  9. Tomasi
  10. The door
  11. Half lights over form
  12. The Garden of Eden
  13. This Place
  14. Josie, the golden retriever
  15. Recollection
  16. Glem Igge Migh
  17. Leaf on a tree
  18. Riding the waves
  19. The nightlife of the cat
  20. Four in the morning
  21. Power
  22. For Nicole (Pour Nicole]
  23. The blind man's liebeslied
  24. You will only hurt a while
  25. Venice Beach sunset
  26. A wave on the wild sea
  27. Stick up at Mohave Pass
  28. The end of the road
  29. Cecile
  30. That love spring
  31. To make love
  32. This is goodbye
  33. One perfect day
  34. Beauty seen
  35. She
  36. The world is sad, waiting
  37. Pipe in the night
  38. World
  39. Conundrum
  40. Praise in the dark

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Link to
Kozmik Press for more previews of the writing of David Stuart Ryan

Link to Grand Festival of the Sun Moon Wind Stars and Ocean at Colva Beach - an epic of three months at an Indian fishing village

Link to the Cream of the Troubadour Coffee House - poems by David Stuart Ryan, Home Cronyn and the thoughts of Ganesh Baba.


(c) David Stuart Ryan 1996. Permission required to reprint these poems except for review purposes.

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