Biography

I have taught English for over 30 years in various local schools though I only do a bit of supply teaching now as I am a man of leisure ! I consider myself to be an existentialist since my loyalty is to the immediate present rather than the past or future and my preference is for existentialist literature and philosophy. Nothing highbrow though as I am a man of simple tastes.

I have a passion for poetry and philosophy as long as I don't have to do anything about it lol. I am delighted to be alive since the only time I ever swam was when I beat 40 million sperm to the egg and boy did I time that right !

Finally, I love people, animals, people that are animals, nature and being pleasant Of the few virtues I practise, I am most inclined to forgiveness as vindictiveness is self-destructive. Thank you for reading this - I am obliged to you.

Tony Ryan

Samples

The Tsunami

Not love at first sight, but touch.
It was when I held you I knew
That looks were not your strength
....Or your weakness.

No masking make-up for you,
Though it was a mask of sorts
That prompted you to be unkempt
And plain with your
Masculine jeans and manners,
A ready-made internal excuse
For your lack of glamour.

You were my hero though.
I would catch my breath
Gazing at your mystical face
That blazed for me
Brighter than the Sun.
Prettiness was re-invented.

Every 15th of each month
We exchanged "anniversary" cards
Brimming with rivers of pulsing love.

But the banks burst...

A letter in the evening paper
From a reminiscing old soldier
Told of how he was demoted
And suspended without pay
All those years ago in Berlin.

He'd helped an orphaned, German girl
Whose mind bore craters beyond bombs,
Sitting forlornly by a ravaged road,
Defiled by the shards of hatred.

You smiled with satisfaction;
Just retribution you sneered.
What pity did they show
When orphaning our wounded youth ?

I saw the awful truth....

Your sympathy with bureaucracy
And not the German girl
Was not a crack but a crevice,
Was not a small wave
But an irrepressible tsunami
That washed away all my worship,
Carried me helpless from you forever.

How could I explain to you
That my new loyalty was to the child
And an old, sensitive soldier
Who replaced you as my hero ?


The Fall

I remember it vividly now,
Two young girls in lime-green dresses
And stained, white ankle-socks.
You might have been playing hopscotch
Or just lingering in those woods,
As frivolous as bluebells,
Before skipping to your school.

But the air didn't crackle
With your playful laughter.

It was a soft, late-November evening
When leaves took virgin flight.
Wide-eyed you waited, expectant,
Under a grimacing sky,
While the women around you,
Anaesthetised by the certainty,
Wore a look of apathy.
There was just their arm-linking,
A binding together in silent bond.

With averted, troubled eyes
You gazed abstractedly
At the dance of spent leaves
Whipped to a frenzy
By sudden gust of cold wind.

When the shots resounded
There were no screams,
Just the quiet resignation
Of falling leaves.
And I, a young spectator,
Wept for the end of innocence,
My coming-of-age.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.