Month: Sep 2016

Washington Roebling

irlandesuk poetry ,

Washington Roebling

From his window
         stubble on unshaven cheeks
the crippled engineer
         looks out over the harbour
as day by day
         the towers rise up and cables
are spliced and strung
         a proposition that has come
to be an obsession
         and an act of love
the binding of two parts
         his life transformed
into landscape
         indelible on the skyline
a place of congregation
         and disparate communion
a paradigm
         a passageway for the living
and for the dead
         they carry in their hearts
a filter of dreams
         and despairing moments
an affirmation that feeds
         the lone eye
birth of a view
         among the spiders
so it soars
         arpeggios of light
rippling in the shifting
         waters below
the structure stirs and is alive
         an impulse of beauty
caught in the curve
         of memory

John Lyons

SoHo

irlandesuk poetry

latte

SoHo

The long hike
          on that sweltering day
from the Brooklyn Bridge
         down to Lafayette Street
on the edge of the Village
         both of us gasping
for a little relief
         from the heat
my white shirt
         soaked through
perspiration
         near blinding me
to the sights

So we fell into
         Joe and the Juice
two 16 oz ice lattes
         to slake our thirst
and look around
         at the customers
so chic and so cool
         the air-conditioning
was redundant

Happy
         memory

John Lyons

In the beginning

irlandesuk poetry

In the beginning

A magical notion
         a concept
in the beginning
         the Bridge belonged
to the mind
         an idea in suspension
a shape that gradually
         took shape
through the language used
         a language that grew
in complexity
         the language of dreams
and of calculation
         a measured language
that was transformed
         into designs
into meticulous drawings
         every nut and every bolt
a language engineered
         into a structure
an act of the imagination
         inserted into the reality
of the space that separated
         Brooklyn from Manhattan
a word made flesh
         born out of the material mind

John Lyons

Icon

irlandesuk poetry ,

Icon

A steel foot planted in Manhattan
         with cables that touched
the feet of the stars
         a vehicle and a machine
a radio voice
         amid the thrum of aviation
a steel paw
         built of earth bone
and Rosendale cement
         a choir of strings
plucked in the night

Adjusting the collar of his shirt
         in 1925 Mayakovsky sauntered
across the bridge
         composing as he went
his poem
         syllable by syllable
longing for the catastrophe
         of his personality
to seem interesting
         and beautiful and modern again
and through the eventual
         dust of destruction
he recognised the structure’s
         immortality
the rattling of trains
         the hardship and height
of the stifling city
         and Frank O’Hara
would have lived forever
         had he not died

John Lyons

Hart Crane to his mother May 1924

irlandesuk poetry

Hart Crane to his mother May 1924

I am told that this section
         of Brooklyn Heights
is very much like London
         Certainly it is very quiet and charming,
with its many old houses
         all a little different
and with occasional trees
         jutting up an early green
through the pavements
         I have just come back from breakfast
and saw some tulips
         dotting the edge of one of several
beautiful garden patches
         that edge the embankment
that leads down to the river.
         It certainly is refreshing
to live in such a neighborhood
         and even though I should not succeed
in acquiring a room that actually
         commands the harbor view
I think I shall always want to live
         in this section anyway

A friend who has such a back room
         in this house has invited me
to use his room whenever he is out
         and the other evening
the view from his window
         was one never to be forgotten
Every time one looks at the harbor
         and the NY skyline across the river
it is quite different and the range
         of atmospheric effects is endless

But at twilight on a foggy evening
         such as it was at this time
it is beyond description.
         Gradually the lights
in the enormously tall buildings
         begin to flicker through the mist
There was a great cloud
         enveloping the top
of the Woolworth tower
         while below in the river
were streaming reflections
         of myriad lights
continually being crossed
         by the twinkling mast and deck lights
of little tugs scudding along
         freight rafts and occasional liners
starting outward

Look far to your left
         toward Staten Island and there
is the Statue of Liberty
         with that remarkable lamp of hers
that makes her seen for miles
         And up at the right
Brooklyn Bridge
         the most superb piece of construction
in the modern world I’m sure,
         with strings of light crossing it
like glowing worms
         as the L’s and surface cars
pass each other
         going and coming

110 Columbia Heights

irlandesuk poetry , ,

110 Columbia Heights

And I have been able
         to give rein to freedom and life
which was acknowledged
         in the ecstasy
of walking hand in hand
         across the most beautiful bridge
in the world
         the cables enclosing us
and pulling us upward
         in such a dance
as I have never walked
         and never can walk
with another—
         and you will see
from my address
         that I am living
in the shadow
         of that bridge

It’s so quiet here
         a moment of communion
where the edge of the bridge
         leaps over the edge of the street
In the evening darkness
         of its shadow I began
the last verse of that poem

[Hart Crane to Waldo Frank
Brooklyn, NY, 21 April 1924]

Act of the moment

irlandesuk poetry

Act of the moment

Act of the moment
         language of the moment
: language of the instant
          the not-thought-about instant
words laid into limestone
         chisel-minds creating stelae
beauty beyond explanation
         beyond the need for explanation
just as the hawk and the dove
         seek no redemption
no inner and outer
         but a wholeness
fired with energy
         with self-purpose

Nature does not demur
         nor does it suffer
from crises of conscience
         through the mist
through the frost
         a white moon
feeds on the grass
          My mother was
my place of birth
         she grew
where cattle grazed
         where every step
was a dance
         and in the mountains
the deer ran wild
         and stars kept their faith
in the lonely sky

John Lyons