‘Shed My Skin, a Web of Bones’ by Lian Ryan

Oil Paint on Canvas
90x70cm
2024

Shed my skin, a web of bones
the souls of seas embrace,
where roots grow and legs don’t go;
where silent stillness grace your ancestors
hollow shrine and whispers woven in shadows
humming hymns of memories ossify, cross
landscapes and dry meadows.
Foster now new rituals
The pulsing age of fragments
fractures and reveals
The fate, the twisted tongue, the labyrinth.
Discover language
Intertwined
in soft, sweet songs of worship
while air howls, beneath my skin
Incessant and entangled.
Wash away my voice and bones
Support my rafts’ uncertainties
Fill my wings with breathes and sighs
of blinded breeze and recognise where
waters meet
To finding rocks
to finding new religion
Upon woman, green - harvests change,
from fate, swaying relics waving.
Wring out illusions of tragedies
Of language fossilised
And dance together, reminisce
Of futures still to mortalise.