Landscape, John Lyons (paper collage)

How light moves
among the branches
in late November
when the leaves
have fallen

and how silently
the squirrels move
now that there’s
no foliage to brush
against their tails

for a few months
the treeline fades
into the horizon
and the eye adjusts
to the effects of winter

at night the black sky
fills with stars or
with an icy moon
that shivers
in the cold universe

and so we sleep on
and dream of passion
and long for the rebirth
of daffodils and roses and
an end to love’s betrayal

John Lyons

          Erasures, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)

No destiny other than words
       actions carved from light
narratives from the heart
       a domicile of tenderness
lovers blood-partnered
       and bound by skin and bone
marigolds for all seasons
       soft whispered caresses

in the blind crucible of space
       in which dying stars
plead with the universe
       for a peppering of kisses
for an exemption
       from the death of energy
a prorogation of love
       amid the lucid silence
the flotsam and jetsam
      of old persuasions 

John Lyons

         Three’s a crowd, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)

We’re all winning
we’re alive
for the time being

I could sit here all day
and count squirrels
running across the tops
of the garden fences
or the coming and going
of magpies and pigeons
sometimes gathering
on the garden furniture
sometimes on the shed roof

or the black and white cat
that pads around
in a world of its own
daydreaming
of something fun to chase
tiny rodents for example

Yesterday a fox
sitting proudly
on a pile of earth
surveying its domain
taking a break
from the family

Today is Sunday
a slow news day –
she might have written
I’d hoped she would
but she didn’t

John Lyons