To You, Little King
Sweet prince of life and love,
You valiant pursuer of softness,
Drip away these cares of conformity,
Fulfilling your ethos of regality.
Gossip-drinking and fashion-minding,
Melody-speaking and self-touching,
Secret-wielding and beauty-longing,
Your world is crossed over.
Burrow not in that darkness of the middle times.
Let the muck of those youthful ages carry you buoyant
Toward the promised freedom of growing
Where potential sips you skyward.
When you slip unguarded to the realm of roughness,
Where those whose sameness appears unsame,
Nourish your soul with that nutritious masculine,
As the paragon of their sort – the manliest of machos.
A gift you are to he who shares your shadows,
And shadows fashioned smart make decent thrones.
Fear not the army you alone shall guide
With the brazen vigor of your true kind
If the universe can these two worlds blend
What holy union might we mend?
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
Dormant Lust
(On a dream I had)
A woman lay sleeping on a wide open bed
In a barren room where someone left her.
I pass the room thrice at a golden hour,
Still she lays with her form hardly changed.
Her eyes closed towards a naughty sun,
She had no face, only form and soul.
She was without complete identity
And I think she means something.
She not only lay there,
but even more — she slept,
Dreaming under grey silken sheets
Frozen and quiet as Strazza could place
Sudden light shimmered an imaged,
A picture to imagine privately.
Within the fantasy I am full a man.
Nature willing her nape to mine.
Released from blindness I see her unchanged
Molded by the stillness of Hypnos
She was without complete identity
And I think she means something.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
Sonnet on a Mass Manipulation
There was a man whose talents made him prince
On all our clan his folly could convince
With foul charisma fair could he achieve
A clownish riddle had he up his sleeve
The lying creature tight a web did spin
And black resentment festered neath our skin
His grip held fast my over-practiced tongue
When fewer words against his own had sung
Upon our innocence his riddles twist
A strangling knot does squeeze its tightening fist
These years beyond, our trust in leaders feigned
Our passion we would covet now is stained.
While he whose reputation’s sunk and burned
It’s I who saw this wretched trope and learned.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
Read me, sip me, taste me, play me
Keep apart and distant.
Let this be my fantasy of your soul.
Read me, Sip me, Taste me, Play me
Turning pages of an active mind
Share for me your bookish delights
Tall tales and spun words
Which one would capture your attention
As you alone have captured mine
Which one would you fall into
As I would have you fall into me
Tea giving rise to snarled steam
Its warm breath sweet as the air
That would twist it up in knotted clouds
Pinched by the lips
By the dew of the tongue to glass
Leaving your kiss’s key for my collection
A lipish echo to pinch against my own
Then might we match
O that I could sip at your soul
As you have sipped me up blindly
Do you dare expose your sleeping place
Where your shoulders and arms cradle and curl
Where your hair snarls and shags
Where you are swallowed into closeness
Where bony arches and fleshy leather
Shake and tremor and life is exhaled
Le petit mort - come, and let me soak you in.
As you have been soaked in before
Let my hands make a lute of you
To be played at the pulsing core
Let my fingers know your keys and strings
Let pipes be played of sensitive tones
Let all instruments be played by God
If God is Salvation, let me be healed by Divine love
Let Him cast our worlds to one
Where heavenly keys unlock new private worlds
Read me, I am made of magic words
Sip me, I have sipped you up in full
Taste me, you have seasoned me with flavor
Play me, as you would touch the lute
Let my reflection be the boy in your eyes.
I, in those mirrors of sapphire,
Could be hugged by frosty desire.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
On the Question of Fatherhood
There is mischief in nature
In me is a trouble-maker
It is I who would have you
If my wishes could be true
No chance for my soul to melt
Dripping down through generations
The inertia of my name
Tradition no more the same
What use are these lessons
A journey only for me
The elixir hardly shared
As if I never cared
To the child I’ll never have
Nature gave me the key
Which rusts in my hand
And sheds itself to sand
O woman of my loins
O man of my conscious
I hold the key sound
But the door is never found
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
I. O Fair and Fine Design
(On a painting: "French Barque on Falmouth Bay"
By Henry Scott Tuke)
Hail, great vessel!
Mighty in your adolescence,
Unaware of your strength,
Blind to your faults,
Rocking like a monstrous cradle.
A manly din replaces recent lullabies.
Fair virginal youth,
Precise in your sinewy rigging,
To where will you sail
And how will you fare?
Join your fleet of the finest athletes.
With a soul as your sail,
Stretch out your eager limbs.
Kiss, with tempting lips
The feast of divine potential
Mighty is your breast and rude is your mast.
Hoist your anchor and let it rust aboard.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
II. Sport You Salty Sea Boys
(On a painting: "Green and Gold"
By Henry Scott Tuke)
Fleshy water nymphs of the shallows,
You pay no mind to your performance.
Delight in your dance is lost to your perception.
Enchant me with your rude pas de deux.
How can we be so inwardly separate?
How can you be so far from me,
Yet housed in my amorous gaze?
Will your sport inspire rich appetites in us?
Already this tongue tastes a tender treat –
Ambrosia nibbled at our dewy lips.
Dare and let the ichor of Himeros filter our youth.
You slippery dogs, can you not see?
You soak in emerald nectar –
The earth’s glittering aphrodisiac.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
III. A Boy With An Oar
(On a painting: "A boy with an oar"
By Henry Scott Tuke)
You there, Sailor
Sail your mighty ship
Your way is directionless
Change course
My voice is silent
I know you hear me
Take my oar
Take my oath
I am the mist on bronze
I am your sinning secret
I am captain and comrade
I am bare and yours
I have what you seek
I seek what you have
Both are bearing
Both desiring
How can you row
With only half the gear?
How can you love
With only half the tools?
How can you dream
With only half the soul?
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
On Art
O Art, you great brain of consciousness,
Nourished in a self sustaining cycle,
From God ourselves,
Sourceless and forceful.
O verse, O harmony, hallucinogenic hues,
Expose ourselves to ourselves.
Rude, cruel, and tastefully bitter;
Plain goodness sipped up naked.
As my heart dissolves of itself,
Let not the necessary dissonance expire.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan
Maracuyá
Maracuyá, kiss me back.
Use your lips as I do mine.
Your soul is the fruit of passions.
My sin shares your likeness.
Planted in the neurosis of my conscience,
You shall be harvested by my soul.
You shall be filtered through the rains of my heart,
And you shall let yourself satisfy.
Maracuyá, my nutritious sin,
Your low-hanging fruits of passion tempt me.
Your low-hanging fruits of passion tease me.
Maracuyá, my passion fruit,
Sip from me every seed of my own
So that I may pass my sweetness on to you.
O Maracuyá, are you a blighted fruit?
Do you dare not kiss me back?
Though you are sour still, I think you hold only beauty,
But I will drip you away from my lips,
One seed by one seed away,
Before a sour kiss turns sweet.
Maracuyá, my passion fruit,
I leave you to your own succession.
If you return to me, I shall know you have been sweetened.
And when you are sweetened, I shall know that you are mine.
When you are sweetened, I will know that you have always been mine.
Then, when the flowers and fruits of the world cease to grow
Kiss me back, Maracuyá.
For at my lips you shall encounter just how much goodness you hold.
You shall encounter just how much goodness you have always held.
Maracuyá, my passion fruit.
© Copyright 2023 Ryan Mangan
Annabelle
Speak and I will think only of your lips.
They are chapped up and teasing me
To taste a little bit more than nothing.
Yes, our hands belong to each other's
For a little bit more than a moment.
I noticed the way you don’t mind us chatting like this,
With the distance of a hand’s width between our faces,
Between our lips of course.
And though you are not the kind I’m usually drawn to,
I think only of how we could be touching and loving.
© Copyright 2022 Ryan Mangan