Ring tone

Get on the bus
           at Putney Bridge
ahead of me
           a petite nun
traditional blue habit
           in her mid-forties
sits across the aisle from me
           mobile phone in her hand

As the bus pulls away 
            from the station
I hear the strains
           of the Ave Maria
and the nun answers
           in what I take to be
an Eastern European
           language

John Lyons

Where ?

The rose asks
where is the bee
where is the rain
where is the sun

where is the sound
of children’s laughter
of lovers’ whispers
where are beauty
and truth ?

John Lyons

Nine words

How soon
the rose fades
under the burden
of beauty

John Lyons

Morning

This morning at sunrise
             the birdsong louder than ever
the air is heavy and humid
             promising thunder
before yielding
             to a clear blue sky

No time for words
             the peace
the silence
             and the chatter of birds
says it all
             the irrepressible thrust
of self-perpetuating nature
             : words can be overrated

John Lyons

Summer love

Now is a time for apricot
             for cherry for peach and for plum
there’s not a cloud in the sky
             and fields are filled with buttercups
and daisies and dandelions
             by which we may tell the time

Now is the time for warm blood
             and for soft hearts
for days spent
             by the ancestral ocean
a refreshing breeze blowing in
             across the gentle billows
now is the time for you
             to lay your head down next to mine
to close your eyes
             and to dream of paradise

John Lyons

Star story

That the rose too
             has its own narrative
it’s ancestral roots
             a species of beauty
that did not evolve
             from thin air
but from the same
             basic building blocks
from which our own
             ancestors were created
an immanence present
             at the dawn of creation
particles of energy
             transformed into mass
and so the universe itself
             is family tree
and infinite displacement
             of inertia
human beings
             who have the sense
to set the rose
             upon a pedestal

John Lyons

No coincidence

It’s no coincidence that
the rose grows in silence

that it has no notion
of the beauty it achieves

through the synthesis
of starlight that raises it

up from the earth
nor that the days

of its blooms are numbered
nor that the enlightened poet

should become its voice
and tell of its beauty

to all who will take heed:
our ingenuity stems

from the stars themselves
that taught us to sing

John Lyons