#ricky ray

[kenopsia-ksp]

editing because i came up with names ❤️ renae dobson - ricky ray dobson - tyreese dobson in order

[rustbeltjessie]

Ricky Ray, from Fealty (Eyewear Publishing Ltd, 2018)

The Seven Hundred Sights in a Horse

A wild horse ran through town. It was always running. Gospel was: something had to be wrong with you to see it. Everyone had seen it. Those who said they hadn’t kept looking over their shoulders. Some saw only an eye, usually when they were blind to the bad side of a relationship. Some saw its mane, a mangy sight, while they went bald or took the bus home from chemo. Its tongue meant you should spit the liquor back into the bottle. The local bum saw its skeleton as he burned from the hollows of his eyes. He took up the guitar again and strummed until every bone disappeared. Its tail told secrets. Those who heard the swish knew what it meant but could never put it into words. They said it was like a higher form of balance. A little girl put out half an apple every evening. The neighbor’s dog ate it and she took it as a sign that she and the horse were friends. Her mother died young and she’s the only one who ever saw the horse’s heart. (Or the only one who confessed.) She married the man she suspected had seen it too. He kissed her when she asked. She and the guitarist became the resident horse interpreters. They often disagreed: on its name, its sex, what color it was, why it had come to town, whether it whinnied when the church bells rang, what a person ought to do with what they saw. Two things they always agreed on: you only rode it out of town, and by out of town they meant out of life, and if you saw its hoof, you better duck.

[beautifulimages]

House of Games (1987)

[kaytheblondebae]

Dis(ability)

Some days, my body is so beautiful

I can't believe I get to live here.

- Ricky Ray

[headlightsforever]

“The Earth hands me a heartbeat and I hand Addie a treat and the way she eats it is gratitude. The way I watch her eat it is gratitude. The wind speaks and we nod. We talk of our hike and our fondness for each other without saying a word.”

- Ricky Ray, “Walk With Addie” from iamb

[lifeinpoetry]

In America We Long For

A savior because countries die, because death drags her shadow through the soil

and no one knows her name or what she wants when she sings the bottom of the heart to sleep

and blows two quick darts of breath that snuff out the candles of our eyes.

— Ricky Ray, published in Diode

[designingsport]

Ricky Ray, Toronto Argonauts

[girlwithlandscape]

“Ability and Restraint” - Ricky Ray

after Geoffrey Hill

I

Recognize the damned among your friends and your friends among the damned, and the blessing of the recognition when it comes to you, whether you looked for it or not. Though human is where we live and die, it is just the beginning of the world. Ah, to ache and suffer through it, and sense within the ache the ability to enjoy, not the ache, but being where ache happens.

II

The heart will have its way with you. The mind is no match. Keep your head down. Ignore that stone in your chest, beating like it wants to break. Force your way through ignorance to awareness. Kill the mice, don’t feed them. So what if each sprung trap snuffs another squeak inside you? Though revelation may arrive like a trainwreck, though life may break you into love, let the pressure build.