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Monday, November 1, 2021
Monday, October 18, 2021
Dear Reader...thank you for sharing the poems and prose on this website. Please enjoy them. All comments are welcome. There is much more in both subject and form throughout the site, so I hope at the end of each page, you will please continue by clicking the OLDER POSTS button.
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 ofNew York
To read please click above Link.
Click here to Read New York Poems
"A stirring, face-to-face encounter with one of
To read please click above Link.
Click here to Read New York Poems
Thursday, November 7, 2013
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.
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.
#
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.
#
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.
########
Sargasso Sea .
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
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."
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."
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