A detail from 3 Vases
3 Vases is a painting executed in acrylics
on a piece of dried celery leaf
by way of experiment.
The composition was inspired
by three vases in the apartment
of a very dear friend.
John Lyons
Month: Sep 2017
Speculation
Speculation
Process and discovery
learning and adaptation
a lifetime spent
never really knowing
who we are
or who we were meant to be
using language as the principal
tool of investigation
using feelings
as the ultimate sounding board
How hard to know one’s self
let alone another
let alone the otherness
of those we love
Who is to say
that we even occupy
the same time and space
I heard the whirring wings
of a wasp around my head
around my hand
that did not sting me
but provided in a sense
a wakeup call as though
it had been a messenger
from another plane or reality
Love lived on the lip
trusting in the unknowable
desiring to be an intimate part
of another being’s mystery
to make and share a body of love
built up from fragments
of truth and beauty
and pleasure and acceptance
of our own imperfections
a union of purpose
intention at the heart of it
the whisper of promissory words
that should be carved in stone
for all time
John Lyons
John Ashbery
John Ashbery
Thinking about John Ashbery’s eyes
that intense stare from every photo
those ever-vigilant painterly eyes
that see or saw everything
in the most minute detail
that never miss or missed a thing
that never sleep :
and the mind behind those eyes
constantly striving to fit
the right words to the right thing
creating a poetic order
of the first order
John Lyons
Torremendo
Torremendo
This land is parched
dry sandy soil underfoot
here and there a fig tree
amid row after row of walnut
Lower down the hillside
a small plot
with fifteen pomegranates
heavy with fruit
and the sound of crickets
insistent incessant
Two large hares
lope off into the distance
three hawks circle
above the scrubland
The remains
of a small construction
barely a stone
left upon stone
Here Geronimo
lived and worked
all his life
knew little else
John Lyons
Poetics
Poetics
Out of sea foam
love formed
not a word
not a notion
but a home
for life
roses fade
and die
not love
it persists
paradise is a person
and a shared path
never to be taken
for granted
John Lyons
The absent mind
The absent mind (deleted)
This poem was a draft for a longer sequence of poems entitled Tooley Street
johnjosephlyons 