Untroubled waters
No goldfish bowl this
but colour moving
with stealth and grace
a flowering of flesh
a world away
from our own
John Lyons
Untroubled waters
Year: 2018
All that time brings
All that time brings
The simplifications
that come with time
the slow build
of experience
of knowledge
the remembrance
together with the forgiving
and the forgetting
after all
life is too short
or too long depending
on the perspective
In time
the frenzy abates
the struggle
to make one’s way
less intense
the hot head cools
there is room for love
with all its gentle acts
of affection from sunrise
to sunset
John Lyons
The business of life
The business of life
Undone
this business of life
this day to day
this thirsting
for more knowledge
for greater understanding
this desire to be loved
and to love
ever more deeply
each action held
up to the light
each thought
each word
under scrutiny
the business of living
of going out into the world
making sense of it
where sense is to be found
nothing complete
all in transit
in transition
everything to play for
still
John Lyons
The dissolution of bones
The dissolution of bones
Who is to say
that a poem that grows
in the mind
is an abstract creation
if indeed that word
has any meaning
and abstracted from what
one might ask
Does the rose not grow
in its mineral bed
secretly building the beauty
of its texture and colour
until ready to present itself
in all its glory
A congery of particles
in the smallest branch / plant
fern and roots that nervously
delve into the depths of the earth
and all things prosper in the warmth
and retreat or die in the dead of winter
Experience isolated and observed
picked over and measured
and raised in words that are
as pincers in the scientific cage
Othello’s handkerchief a specimen
examined in the Shakespearean frame
Duncan lives on but for a perverse prayer
Caesar dies in the cold doing of the deed
Flakes of snow alight
on an impressionist canvas
reality revealed in oils
thinned with turpentine
and in every gesture
a remembrance of the destiny
of flesh and blood
the hue and cry of complaint
in the wilderness and love
the single solitary comfort
John Lyons
The eye of the beholden
The eye of the beholden
There in the neighbour’s garden
in Doughty Street just a few doors
down from Dickens
the tall laburnam in full bloom
golden chain or golden rain
they call it for the bright yellow
trifoliate flowers densely packed
on the long racemes that dangle
in the warm summer air
the petals curved upwards
and downwards to form
a gasp of an open mouth
so as to entice the pollinator
with a deep sigh to enter
and sex it up : beauty
is in the eye of the beholden
John Lyons
Let that be a lesson
Let that be a lesson
The mind brought
to its knees
by the body
will rise again
when the soul heals
Knowledge
only of the self
but love steps out
of the comfort zone
takes risks
will hazard a guess
takes no no
for an answer
just as the deer
flees across the hills
leaps over springs
hides within thickets
the hunter follows
in hot pursuit
until the prize is taken
The mind can harbour
only so many thoughts
only so many
mixed emotions
but love has its separate
ways and means
and will never
accept defeat
John Lyons
Seen at sunset
Seen at sunset
In the early evening sun
the fox stands on its shadow
on the garden wall
it turns this way and that
assessing its options
which are infinite and
it hasn’t a care in the world
much like me !
John Lyons
What is there on this earth
What is there on this earth
What is there on this earth
that is not of this earth
and what profusion of identities
from a single source
Every temper and temperament
under the sun is here
and all things cohere and coalesce
and all things increase
and all things diminish
all caught in the curve ball
of time so that age goes
before beauty
and we are bold enough to ask
how old is eternity
how wide infinity
and question all
that the earth affirms
knowing that our every step
will be counted
that all our actions
will be judged
and with every failure to love
our souls will be marked down
for all time
John Lyons
Phalera bucephala
Phalera bucephala
Or buff-tip—
a heavy-bodied moth
with grey forewings
and a prominent buffpatch
at the apex : its hindwings
are creamy white
but its thoracic hair
is buff too
A night errant
it rides the June or July skies
and is pulled but not driven
to the light
At rest it resembles
a broken twig :
the deadly laburnam
is its favoured foodplant
John Lyons
A Monday revisitation
A Monday revisitation
To see as love sees
wholly and completely
to be as love is
disavowing all
enmity or division
that would detract
from our humanity
truth and beauty
fired in the soul
all from a single flame
the smile the kiss
the caress the same
all fed on the fruits
of photosynthesis
That no love
is ever lost
is a cosmic law
of which the literal
sunlight in her eyes
is living proof
To the meadow
where often I am permitted
to return and find it
transformed into
a lush carpet of dandelion
and delicate daisy
overlaying the deep green
such vibrant colour owing all
to the ardent light
that lights our lives
John Lyons
