Absolute
intensity
of activity
in her
consummately
congested
cosmos
No time
for time
and space
pure
unpossessed
intimate
existence
her life
an unfolding
soulstorm
her beauty
simply
in being
John Lyons
A world made of the mind
and all that that entails
an embodied soul
of thought and feeling
He who brings flowers
she who adores them
they conjoined in love
made one body
a substance of the heart
as the poet says
from two one
time space compressed
John Lyons
The warm
living hand
capable
of shaping
the world
with gesture
action
tenderness
and so change
the course
of history
of love
John Lyons
Crawl out of bed
peer out the window
first dusting of light
on all I see
but I see with memory
as much as with my eyes
the different complexities
of silence
sometimes a comfort sometimes not
as I imagine in the trenches
where my grandfathers fought
and the poet asks
how long is a rest
in music
and I ask
how long is this silence
and what does it portend
and is it a beginning
or is it the end
of a fragmentary process
the silence of innocence
or of culpability
and will I one day
be a bird bereft of song ?
John Lyons
Travelling on the Circle Line
I see a 3-month old baby
lying on her back
in a carry cot
She’s wearing a blue babygro
and she’s waving her tiny hands
and gurgling with contentment
She’s looking up
at the carriage ceiling quite intently
and it occurs to me
how many hours young infants
spend on their back
and how many ceilings
they get to study
in all that time and whether
any residual memory lingers
and what in years to come
this child will make
of what she sees
when she gazes up
at the frescoes
in the Sistine Chapel
John Lyons
September and with it
come days that taunt us
with blue skies and hoarfrost
in the meadows at dawn
falling temperatures
and the defeat
of summer memories
as though life expects us to lie down
and give up the ghost
without a struggle
But no
love retains secret pockets
of warmth and light
to see us through the winter
through the bitter cold
of ice and snow
Chestnut leaves are turning
to a dull crisp brown
the shiny fruit splitting
free from its spiky shells
the games we played
with those conkers long gone
But the consolations of love
will sustain us with livable time and space
to see us through the coming months
invincible love will flower
once again in spring
the love that burns
within the sanctuary
of the eternal soul
John Lyons
What few things we have
we carry with us
our mind and our senses
the capacity to feel
and to express those feelings
beauty is not the blind rose
it knows nothing of our admiration
it blooms amid thorns and bees
and it lives and dies in silence
unaware of its glorious scent
it is we who confer the distinction
of beauty upon the world around us
just as we separate the wolves
from the sheep and all that is good
from what is not
and love
love in all its soft and subtle glory
the greatest beauty of all
how the eye is besotted
with the loving world around it
the eyes and the lips
and the tongue and the hands
that touch and are touched
man woman or child
the greatest beauty of all
John Lyons
This is the last of the recent paintings executed in acrylics on the wooden lids
of French cheese boxes. It shows the energies and colours of life emerging from the sea
and reaching up to the sky. The painting is double-sided and the reverse (shown
below) represents the literal reverse of life, the dull grey mass of uncreativity
of those who prefer to exercise their purse rather than their imagination
and are consequently disengaged from the vibrancy of their true humanity.
Life is dedicated to my wonderful son, William, born 38 years ago today,
a natural poet, gifted with insights I could only dream of possessing!
Happy Birthday, William!
John Lyons
With its threads of colour
this imagined portrait of Hermes
the Greek god of mischief and scarves
was improvised for a dear friend
herself a great lover of scarves
John Lyons
In early September this Andalusian soil
in which these almond trees stand
is friable and dry as a bone
their branches have been
clipped and stripped
of their fruit and foliage
Marshalled in their rugged groves
these neighbours are condemned
to stand two metres apart
and so separated
by an infinitely sad
and withering silence
Yet come the New Year
this entire terrain
will be swathed in a soft blanket
of pink and white blossom
as new life surges through
the wiry willowy branches
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 