In painting as in music and literature
what is often called abstract
is little more than a figurative representation
of a more delicate more difficult reality
less visible to the naked eye
Clarice Lispector
And so the remains of memory
the rabbits fed on wheat husks
mackerel fished
throughout the summer
to provide for the winter
paddling out to the island
in the kayak
we had built in the garage
soaking up the sun
on those endless innocent days
the first taste of conger eel
the first taste of wine
the first taste of a girl’s lips
an inkling of what love might be
in the years to come
the pleasure and the pain
John Lyons
No words required!
Contemplate in silence
a rectangular canvas
washed in mustard yellow
there is nothing there
but the surface
and the dimensions
and a few imperceptible
flaws in the fabric
nothing to distract the eye
no composition
nor any relationships
other than with the space
crowded around
the four sides
of this object
of artistic intention
Make of it
what you will
it took almost a lifetime
to complete
Make of that
what you will
John Lyons
From a blank canvas
two ghostly figures emerge
nameless
faceless —
we know nothing
of where they’re coming from
know nothing
of where they’re heading
Heaven and earth appear to be aligned
but what is
this couple’s relationship
and what would they say
if they had words to tell ?
Brushed in ochre
shrouded in space
surrounded by silence
they are an enigma
of the imagination
John Lyons
Revised
The vastness of it
the silence that occupies it
and yet there’s nanospace
the emptiness of it
the whiteness of it
the noise that fills it
the measurement of it
the distance between objects
present in it
the relationships between
those who inhabit it
the blank page or canvas
the soundless concert hall
dancers at rest
The Pequod sailing the South Seas
the white whale lost in it
Ahab too
the sperm oil that illuminated
the darkness of it
Samuel Enderby and General Wolfe
asleep in a Greenwich crypt
our lives an interval in it
our love a moment in it
our hearts lost in it
John Lyons
And so to Deptford to St Paul’s
where death lies buried
in the empty grounds
where fresh-blown roses
are washed in the dew
petals gone as a gust of breath
Here in the broken darkness
the birds fly silently
from oak to ash to sycamore
and strands of light
filter through the dying leaves
Here we remember her hair
her lips and the shape of her smile
the taste of her kiss
the gentleness of her voice
What lies beneath the ground
is love and beauty
held on a threshold
by the water’s edge
ready to be launched
into a new infinity
built of stardust
Smoke and shadows rise up
from neighbouring houses
where bone to bone
young lovers lie
locked in sweet converse
frail dust
frail autumn dust
caught in the swirl of light
Here the dreaming flesh cries out
the deathless voice of all the world :
out of my love
her heart will not stir
These stones to praise thee :
tall and lovely tender she is
a fabrication built of autumn roses
of words that hover
light as leaves in the silence
silks and cashmere
against my aching skin
the warmth of burning coals
the ebb and flow of the river
that carries our days
down to the sea
Search not my lips love
unbind my hands
rise up to my caress
let us stretch our bones
till daylight comes
