Concision
Love
form
shape
weight
words
a face
a voice
a gesture
many
silence
John Lyons
Year: 2018
Time for a poem
Time for a poem
What you notice
as you go through your day
is the gentle tug of time
how it urges you
to accomplish something
to achieve
to make a difference
to be someone
Time stands there
looking over your shoulder
a would-be second conscience
advising you to ignore
the rose and the butterfly
with their carefree beauty
to look no longer into the pond
where the fish idle so pleasantly
but to be about your business
and the task in hand
John Lyons
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
Through the window
I see the bushes heavy
with bright red berries
such bounty at which
the birds will peck away
until the fruit is stripped
the pond frozen over
and winter is upon us
This is nature’s theatre
and so the cycle repeats
playing endlessly
from plenty to poverty
and how the mighty fall
and how without love
our lives are a kind
of nothing
John Lyons
Liquidities
Interim, John Lyons (oil on canvas)
Liquidities
Life and its liquidities
the ebb and flow
the figures that come and go
and how one thing
leads to another
and the dry wit of words
amid the steel stone and glass
structures that cement
our minds to the ground
so that life becomes abstract
and all the while
as the climate heats
the earth cools
and pockets of distress
spread like wildfire
and time turns to December
frost thick in the fields
and the night sky
a fretwork of stars
and a moon that beams
misfortune upon those detached
from the pulse of love
John Lyons
Single pigeon
Single pigeon
A single pigeon
sitting on the very summit
of a conifer
possesses innate skills
that I could never
in a million years master
For one : it can fly
and for another : it has
a sense of direction
second to none
I observe it now
against the backdrop
of a grey sky
preening its feathers
as the sun rises
It is emblematic
of nature
but knows nothing
of itself
does not see itself
has no I
and does not write
John Lyons
Monday morning
Monday morning
Suddenly green again
the fields that the summer
burnt away
vanished the crisp dry grass
now rolling pastures
and lush meadow
Tireless renewal
what the sun scorches
the sun brings back to life
and the days when we
went down to the sea
are behind us
when we sat on the promenade
watching the waves
of families as they passed by
the children eating their lollies
the parents
chatting their lives away
There’ll be no more roses
until next spring
though imports may
see us through
The pebbles and stones
and sand on the beach
and the sea with a history
all of its own
an archaeology even
a strange murky kingdom
not quite of this world
Winter is a simplification
it strips away all but
the very essence of life
what must go on
In the summer love
comes out to play
to frolic
in wide open spaces
In the winter it gets cosy
draws up a blanket
lies still : lovers all
hugging their silent dreams
through the faltering hours
John Lyons
Nature’s upper hand
Nature’s upper hand
Notice so soon
after the drought
the long weeks
without rain
how soon the grass
has returned to green
One evening
the heavens opened
with a sudden storm
now the coarse dry fields
we walked across
are back to lush
pasture as though
the past had never been
John Lyons
Bloodlands
Bloodlands
To speak of blood
what is in it
what feeds it
what raises it
its metaphysical weight
the price of it
the thirst for it
the lack of it
bloodied beauty
of the red rose
of a red sun sinking
below the horizon
whether the making
of good or bad blood
the tangled bloodlines
that bind us together
that set us apart
the war and peace
John Lyons
Turtles
Turtles
Turtles on the Pacific coast
that emerge from the sea
that scurry across the wide flat beach
that burrow into the soft sand
and there lay their eggs
in the white moonlight
This is a fertile universe
that so longs for life
that nothing is allowed to die
not energy
not love
nothing
John Lyons
Shooting the breeze
Shooting the breeze
A body of thoughts and feelings
fed by the blood of sunlight
a body that moves erratically
along a predetermined path
a body that knows when to stop
to admire a rose or to stroke a dog
a body given up to the intensities
of work and the leisure of love
one that lives in defiance
of the seasons and dreams only
of moonlight and a warm bed
in which to lie A body
stripped of all ambition
other than to breathe
the wholesome country air
and count the beats of its heart
John Lyons
