Year: 2023

Coffee bones

irlandesuk poetry

archaeology

Coffee bones, John Lyons (30 x 30 cm, coffee grounds and oil on canvas)

Bones that yearn
for other bones
out of the earth
into the earth

coffee grounds
and yellow cadmium
eyes turning
one toward the other

only love heals
the scars left
by love

winsome
her hazel eyes
her lips
a celebration

love woven
on the loom
of her life

bones
and the echo
of other bones
long gone

Venus sidles up
to the moon
and for a brief
moment

it illuminates
their love
their bodies turning
in unison

time will one day
sweep them away
for ever conjoined
their dust

their bones
laid to rest
for a single
eternity

John Lyons

A salute to Robert Rauschenberg (2017)

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

charlene

Charlene, Robert Rauschenberg (1954)

Let’s throw some words at the page
           see if they stick :
at this frail moment in time
           I have no aspirations
I am neither a painter nor a pianist
           but my imagination flickers still
I am a collage doused in my own colours
           and not at all sure I have
the temperament for heaven
           wherever that is

but I do love music and horses
           and the way a canvas can draw me in
a composition that takes a firm grip
           on my eye and offers me easy entry
doors or gates of perception I don’t mind
           what’s in a label ?
whether it is nobler ?
           beauty happens it just does as does truth
so remove the gauze from your eyes
           put everything else aside
and get stuck into your life
           how many do you think you have ?
comb the world for affections
           and any found objects you can keep
in your silk-screened closet
           be a chancer more than refusenik
erasure is the highest form of creation
           its space affords a prelude
to multiple afterthoughts
           and many other finer things
so please pay attention
           isn’t that the message ?

John Lyons

September, by Molly Rosenberg

irlandesuk poetry

The air is still, not a breath anywhere,
Everything seems to be hanging immobile
In the amber sultriness of the September
Afternoon.

The bees having a last foray into the
Dying lavender,
Greedily collecting their final harvest,
To store the sweetness through the,
Hard winter months.

The fish in the cool deep pond,
Flapping and mouthing at feeding time,
Anxious to make the most of these last,
Summer rays
Before retreating to the murky depths
To while away those winter days.

The summer days seemed endless,
But the nights are earlier and cooler,
We retreat to warmth and slumber,
Until the misty water colour of a sun,
Rises over the distant Weald.

Molly Rosenberg

Out of kindness come words

irlandesuk poetry ,

Out of kindness come words and silence and
caution and colours   and nothing painful
that cannot be removed   perhaps with a
kiss    or a blind eye   or a ribbon tied
loosely or a fingerboard of rose wood
or a string plucked gently
                                     sounding a note
of fragrant harmony  no distress  no 
anger  no panic  not a hair out of
place at a bend in the river where white
swans gather under a pale blue sky on
a Wednesday at noon   and very likely
feelings of love are expressed and dinner
is served and a bed is made and lips are
licked and time peters out 
                              This is the end

John Lyons

Child of nature

irlandesuk poetry

How strange that you are hereless   Like the wind
gone   leaving the sky   the earth   the green world
in your wake   wordless in the chill silence
When I was a child I dreamt as a child
and lived a life about which I knew no-
thing   I ate   slept  played 
                           learned what I was taught
loved the fields  the grass   the trees   the woodlands
anything that kept me close to nature
thought that cities were places where people
went to die   But you I loved   step by step
I grew into your smile  your tenderness
my eyes   my ears   always attentive to
the simplicity and ease with which you
negotiated each hour of the day

John Lyons

Jackson Pollock rules

irlandesuk art, poetry

Pollock_untitled
                           Jackson Pollock, Untitled

Days tumble one after the other   dawn
to dusk   Sometimes
                   in pure broad light   sometimes
through an empty indeterminate dark
in which newspapers pave the way for time
to progress    segmenting our lives into
events while extolling humanity’s
wounds and achievements
                            Art seeks to oppose
the indifference to simple being
in which jewels are jingled as trophies
worthless possessions heralded as signs
of worth and social standing   Thus Jackson
Pollock rescued the rectangle and re-
vealed the sinews of a chaotic world
Promethean pigments poured on canvas

John Lyons

Stephansdom

irlandesuk poetry ,

Stephansdom

How to read
      the intricacies of faith
chiselled into pale stone
      every plane every angle
and in the cool silent shadows
      weary emblems of ecstatic energy
of saintly narratives
      and terrifying passions

The names in the inscriptions
      gradually fading into dust
the corrosive way
      of the world
of all life
      humbled by death

What persists
      is the belief
and something of the love
      the kiss that outlives
the tears
      the cross borne with a smile

Through the towering spire
      cold winds whisper
and in the square below
      the carriage wheels grind
and hard hooves resound
      on the worn cobblestones

Yes a monument
       to the warmth of fellowship
to a common purpose
      expressed in dying crafts
an overwhelming art in which
      the devil is in the detail

John Lyons

Ode to Joy

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

Ode to Joy

Ode to Joy, Joan Mitchell (oil on canvas, 1970)

Ode to Joy

Within these words   many silences   I
have nothing to say and I’m saying it
Overnight the world
                         has turned green  :  oak
ash   sycamore on the skyline   The sap
has risen and nature is rejoicing
The daffodils accomplish nothing   nor
does the cherry blossom now lining the
gutter    I think of space as silent dis-
tance I think of time as silent space   wait-
ing to be used    No more dying Frank wrote
in his ode to joy and then he died   This
is life     the bare bones of it   the warm soft
tissue of it    Live it and love it while
you can before cold death
                                puts you to bed

John Lyons

Click on the painting to follow a link to the Joan Mitchell Foundation