What can I say ?
I hear the gentle mutter
of rain falling
this grey morning
and a lone pigeon cooing
somewhere off in the distance
and the sound of a train
moving down the line
: otherwise the air is still
not a breath of breeze
a moment all but frozen in time
a day struggling to get going
John Lyons
Think of it thus
a poem is starlight
clusters of words
condensations of energies
starlight is in our DNA
poetry too
Think of the brightest poems
that shine down the ages
the immortal lines that stretch out
into infinity
John Lyons
Temper and belief
as if to say –
the mutability
of mass and energy
the purpose of human shadows
the arc of time marked
by the rise and fall of poppies
the summer rites of butterflies
the miniscule expansion
of my personal universe
rubbing shoulders
with all the necessary angels
life the colour of sky and sea
the full weight of these particles
that press around me
Green will soon turn to gold
dense clouds will gather
in chromatic clusters
in some past life
I will chance upon love
and savour those moments
that will always be
that will never return
John Lyons
A globule –
a small dark cloud
of gas and dust
seen against the background
of a luminous nebula
or more simply
a viscous drop of fat
ball-shaped hence the globe
Falstaff’s belly shifted from Curtain Road
in Shoreditch to Southwark
all the world within the confines
love and jealousy and murderous
ambition alongside scholarly indecision
tears running down their cheeks
of joy and laughter
of pain and despair
full of the pomp and circumstance
of life lived out on the boards
the bard with a silver tongue
who filled that word that name
that astronomical sphere
with drama with poetry
with all the magical dust
of human life
John Lyons
I will go to the ocean
feel the breath of it on my face
and breathe in unison with it
and the sun will rise
with all its fierce energy
and will scorch the sand
which I call sea-dust
and I will tread gingerly on it
so that my feet scarcely suffer
and I’ll admire the frigate birds
that ply the waves just off-shore
how patiently they fish for shadows
and at night I’ll count the stars
that have tracked me
and all I ever loved since birth
John Lyons
Isn’t it all an illusion
the shapes and colours
the proportions
the perspectives
the assumptions we bring
to the drawing table ?
What tricks of the trade
have been employed
what realities have been
abstracted and brushed over
to be replaced by sheer pigments
of the imagination ?
John Lyons
Willem de Kooning, Summer Couch, 1943
You get the picture
it’s a shut-in weekend
pale drizzle out on the streets
and Frank is home relaxing
after a hard few days
at the museum office
and he’s listening
to Grieg and to Prokofiev
to relieve those feeling-
sorry-for-oneself feelings
and he’s dreaming
of the painting
Dutch Willem de Kooning
has promised him
and because he’s Dutch
it has an orange bed in it
and Frank muses that it’s
more than the ear can hold
John Lyons
L’ange qui descend, John Lyons (50 x 70 cm, oil on canvas)
Yesterday seen
through an acre of grass
honeysuckle and petunias
peonies and nasturtiums
and sweet lavender in the air
and my life under glass
The rag and bone of me
and all the years
run through the mill
of the conversing mind
the long shadow of age
cast not as affliction
but as an accomplishment
classed under mighty oak
In his heart of hearts
the poet knows
that the nutshell
that the end of life
is life itself
and that every page
is a stage upon which
to strut his stuff
Pen to paper
with an eagle eye
he surveys it all
committed to the call
of truth – inspired
if not besotted
by the frenzied memory
of love’s youthful follies
In time the clouds
will dissipate
in time his silences
will ring loud and clear
the dead will cast off
their shrouds
and the angels among us
will dry their tears
John Lyons
The smile of hours
the fresh fragrance
of ancient woodland
foxes and squirrels
about their business
as though the world
did not exist
or as though theirs
was the only world :
crows and magpies
looking down
on sparrows –
and delicate wild flowers
in the meadows
My boots damp
from the morning dew
an expectancy in the air
everything
you name it
about to happen
John Lyons
It’s so beautiful
life
the power of it
the frailty of it
the five-petalled primrose
quality of it
the balance of it
how we are always
only a breath away
from love or death
how so much and yet
so little is held
in our hands –
we have words
to breach the silence
and silence to sustain
our words and images
all that is expressed
out of us calmly and urgently
all that speaks
to the heart
and to the soul
So beautiful
life
a hand pressed
to lips or the sound
of a child’s laughter
her thin hair
caught in the wind
blowing across her face
her defiant smile
her eventual kiss
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 