poems

  • Learning by feel

    They dream in reverse—

    wood remembering touch.

    Mistakes migrate backward,

    powdered into forgiveness,

    ideas shed skins on flat white worlds.

    The core snaps like doubt,

    is pared to a point,

    insists again.

    Somewhere, something once rooted

    is learning your hold

    by heart.

  • Let go of

    They loosen their grip on light,

    release the long-held green,

    and drift—

    small decisions made by air.

    What once stitched sky to branch

    now learns the language of ground,

    turning color into memory,

    and sound into rest.

  • Silence Bowed

    The climb tore skin from bone,

    and every breath was fire.

    Stone gave no mercy,

    wind whispered doubt.

    But still—one step,

    then another.

    At the summit,

    no fanfare—only sky.

    And the silence

    finally bowed.

  • Deferred clarity

    a hush

    on the edge

    of outlines

    unspoken

    trees gesture

    to no one

    in a language

    blurred mid-sentence

  • Portals

    One opens.

    Another waits.

    A third was never real.

    They do not lead,

    only suggest.

    The floor is unconvinced.

  • Loyal to ghosts

    A door closes, and they wait.

    Scandal is leaving, even for a moment.

    Controversy is an empty hand.

    Abuse is forgetting to come home.

    Still, they forgive before you ask.

  • Dissolve

    hands slip through nothing,

    blue breath breaks—

    a shape, no memory.

    reflection shatters,

    reforms,

    never the same,

    never still.

  • Rewind

    A step taken, then wished away.

    Silence fills the gaps

    where different words could have been.

    Scandal of the self,

    controversy with no audience.

    Abuse of memory—

    playing it back, changing nothing.

  • Made a website!

    www.brendanragan.com

    Still a long way to go but happy to be live

  • Echo

    A whisper grows teeth.

    Controversy ripples outward,

    pulling in those who were never near.

    Scandal wears a new face,

    painted by hands that were never there.

    Abuse is spoken of loudly,

    then drowned beneath the next wave.

    Nothing ends,

    only shifts shape.