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War In A Beautiful Country: In this contemplative mystery novel, because death is unknown, life becomes the puzzle.

If you would also enjoy CHANGES OF HEART, five short stories of change that alter lives for better or worse, please click the following link.
 Five Short Stories

And to check out the complete collection of poetry all in one place, please click on the following link: STAR ON FIRE

For a full-length romance novel, based on a true story, set in 1960's Rome and New York, click on SKYLARK.  SKYLARK

Living With The Brooklyn Bridge
"A stirring, face-to-face encounter with one of New York's greatest landmarks." The Intruder Bridge, the Enchanting Bridge, theMysterious Bridge, the Brutal Bridge, the Living Bridge.
To read please click above Link.


Click here to Read New York Poems

Excerpt from novel: WAR IN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY

But in truth she had gotten bone tired of married men, their sneaky unsureness, the guilty reluctance that traveled alongside their propelling passions, so that every encounter was like watching an animal in the wild eat: they would take a bite and quick look over their shoulders. 

She had gotten tired of the drunken calls in the middle of the night after, sometimes, years of silence. “I love you. I love you.”
And they would cry. 

Tired of their adolescent confusion and emotional greed: "You know what I wish?" one of them told Nina as he was hurriedly putting on socks to catch the next train back to the suburbs, "I wish I could bring you home with me and we could all live together." He seemed to mean it, but Nina knew that the only things she would get from him were an umbrella and a shoehorn left behind.

She was tired of the inventive lying---of the man who would send theater tickets to one of her friends, his mistress, so she could be in the same audience as he and his wife, in order that all three could share the same experience. And if they couldn’t enjoy commenting to each other directly as the play unfolded, well, at least they could briefly catch each other’s eye in the lobby as the wife, innocently unaware, chatted with friends.

Tired of watching suburban families ice-skating together on bright winter Sundays: devoted father, comfortable husband, she knowing that he was no doubt also another person, a stranger to this same family, living a lie with the people closest to him, forcing on them a false life and the waste that comes with it, the shrinking of all their other possibilities as they lived in a land of their own making, all the major landmarks left off the map, taking them far afield of where they thought they were headed and where they would have chosen to be.
Some of it she understood. Nina knew that when you live with someone you lose appreciation for their best traits; that a wife, the woman who knows a man as well as himself, would have to become both ally and enemy. That married men love their wives for their familiarity and their history, but get bored with them for the same reasons. That they love their mistresses for their mystery and uninvolvement, but are removed from them for the same reasons.

No, she was not afraid she would get involved with Walker. Nor was she concerned with protecting the sanctity of his marriage. That was his job. In any case, Walker’s timing was bad.

His married predictability made her skin crawl.

HE SAID I AM A BITCH
I EAT LIFE.

IT SLIDES DOWN MY CHIN
AND THE SIDES OF MY MOUTH

BIG, FAT, SWEATY
EATER OF LIFE

I WANT THE WHOLE THING,
THE BIG BITES,
THE MOUTHFULS

I WANT IT PUFFING OUT
MY CHEEKS AND DRIPPING
OFF MY FACE

I WANT IT TO STICK BETWEEN
MY TEETH, AND
CRADLE IN MY TONGUE AND
HANG ON MY
HAIR AND
DROP OFF MY LIPS
TO BE SEEN
MANGLED, CHEWED
DISGUSTING WHEN I TALK

I PULL AND  PUNCH
AND SHRED
LIFE UNTIL
IT SHRIEKS
AROUND MY HEAD.

I LOVE THE SOUND.

I WOULD SCARE
THEM TO
DEATH

IF ANYONE EVER
KNEW
ME

THEY WOULD SUFFOCATE.

#

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING AFTER 9/11

We brought you back
like a retired
politician, tapping
into old glories
because
we didn’t know
what else
to do.

All eyes on you
again,
over-shadowed
sister,
resurrected
from ashes
that are not
yours.

ON NOT BEING ENOUGH OF A POET


the trouble is
my life
is lovely

not everything
must
be a poem:
mist
on a motel
golf course
is not,
and yet......

I am
afraid
to have
no talent

afraid
of loneliness
if I do.
########

MY GREAT SUMMER

         (2013)

It’s the summer

of long ago

again.

Not the summer

of

sandy dunes

and

ocean

beach.

Not the summer

of

Roman ruins

and

Ancient

lake.

Not the summer

of

screened-in

porch

and crying

loon.

Not the summer

of

cocktail hour

and

backyard

pool.

Not the summer

of

covered

bridge

and

waterfall

Not the summer

of

red lightning.

Not the summer

of

Sargasso Sea.

But the summer

of

childhood

between

kid

and

catching up.

The summer

of

nothing

but

itself.

####

-Patricia Ryan

C. 2013

TODAY YOU KNOW IT’S TOO LONG WITHOUT THEM

You’ve waited before.

Held your breath.

For Christmas.

For summer.

Til the car pulled up.

It was reasonable.

You knew how.

It always came true

sooner or later.

But today

you know something

is wrong, the wait is

too long today

it hits you like

the puzzled child

who has to give

up, stop sitting

on the curb looking

down the street, who gets

called in for dinner because

now it’s too late.

Today you get the full

impact: the dead

don’t show up no

matter how many

years you think are

too many no matter

they are absent

beyond patience

they are not coming.

Today you know the car

will never pull up to

the curb

Christmas will

always arrive

empty

and summer will

forever be

cold.

                    #####

-Patricia Ryan  12/2/13

Excerpt from novel War In A Beautiful Country

No, sudden death was too ungraceful.
But was that the worst thing about it?
Regina concluded the worst thing would be the regret. Regret for the loss of her unduplicatable past, present and future. Regret for the extinguishing of her particular flame, for a life come and gone without even casting a shadow, for the way the living discount the dead, thinking of them as an old idea, as failed survivors.
Regina secretly felt superior to the dead, as though they had foolishly opened the wrong door.
"I'm going to hate being dead!" she thought. "I miss myself already."