Ray Malone

Ray Malone is an Irish writer and artist living in Berlin, Germany, working on developing a highly-reduced aesthetic through a series of projects exploring the lyric potential of minimal forms, based on various musical and/or literary models. His work has been published in numerous print and online journals in the US, UK and Ireland.

“Étude 128,” “Étude 143,” and “Interval 404”

no music, only the daylight, the green
of the trees growing, so fresh and bright,
imagine a leaf, a single one of them
held to your cheek, in its chill,
its refusal of heat, this early in the year,
the stars so far from here, the birds
in their lightness going about their business

“Interval 213,” “Étude 46,” and “Étude 76”

reaching across, hand into the blackberry bush,
a walk from where we were down to the sea,
a small bay, of pebbles & the incoming swell of the water,
listening for the rhythm, as if it might be the key to writing

“Interval 189,” “Étude 15,” and “A Disappearance”

it whispers its way through to me, the night,
in the dying light of day, the things done,
the slow dissolve of sense, the list of smiles
ticked one by one from memory, a frown
or inimical face, best forgotten:

“Interval 101,” “Interval 103” and “Interval 114”

first step, to take up the pen,
ponder it,
as instrument—

a piece of paper then,
as white and infinite
as the light—

“sounding 21”, “si-ghting 4” and “What”

tired of waiting he writes
while there’s timeand the white space
to trace the light’s line
from place to place
from all the corners of his mindfind
the dust of all that’s gathered there
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