Love you one time
love you two times
I understand
but what does
“love you always”
mean on the lips
of a lover who
excludes you
from her life
who says and does
nothing to affirm
that love but allows
those very sentiments
to settle as silent sediment
in a soon to be
forgotten past
John Lyons
Between Buda and Pest
on a pleasure boat
sailing the Danube
as snow fell
my hands frozen
my teeth chattering
in the cold night
and you beside me
One more memory
to add to our stock
of shared moments
of love and kisses
but time marches
to a drum tap
and all things pass
in this field of battle
John Lyons
For a time we shall refrain
from love games
and from all the charades
built on false words
and empty gestures
and senseless betrayals
The swallows have all
flown south for the winter
and I shall join them
in my heart at least
With the summer heat
they will return
in that I trust
but in not much else
John Lyons
Poetry is word time
the running metre
swift of foot
along the streets
of Paris or Berlin
or Venice with its canals
The impertinence of history
the microbes’ biological clock
or doomed stars
as their batteries deplete
: what drives heaven
and hell and every nook
and cranny of creation
Drinking mulled wine
in the Christmas markets
as snow gently falls
through the universe
as it settles upon the living
and the remembered dead
throughout the vales
of northern Europe
and far beyond
Locked into the land
with our earth gaze
ears cocked to capture
a friendly voice
and it comes through
crackling with radio
interference
our bridled thoughts
to be mounted at will
eternity in the saddle
time holding the reins
And love a living thing
palpable flesh
squeezed with delight
as darkness falls
or at dawn
as the cattle egrets
begin their day
and the host herd
shuffles down to the river
to slake their thirst
all in good time
solid word time
cosmic rhyme time
John Lyons
What was there to love
but the light that danced
in her eyes : starlight
and through her words
the music of her mind
the love that flowed
through her voice
the joy it exuded
The vibrant love in her
the song sounded
in her heart : the quickstep
and the foxtrot
that we two tangoed
Now tears from the tongue
new art and old hurt
slack bow of the violin
that my father played
in days of sadness : the grace
from having known her
the pursed once-kissed lips
stretched on a canvas
that the eyes haunt
dark pupils that once embodied
the affirmative
I press strings
to the fingerboard
but grasp only those airs
that emanate
from the mournful outer stars
Overnight my world
withered to mute music
mute wisdom
and no second paradise
Turn again I say
to recapture the imprint
my mirror still bears
of a time when desire
was free and our love
prospered honourably
and grief was unknown
John Lyons
And yet not you alone
can break my faith in life
nor will I consume my days
in backward tracings
of my heart and mind
Each morning I wake
to the dazzle of the day
there is a softness a fullness
a freshness in the air
my love is greater
than the memory of it
and it is known
by word of mouth
by gesture of the hand
Last night as silent hues
covered the evening sky
and the light mellowed
into dusk and darkness
I recalled our brooding
blissful days
with undiminished joy
breathed in
the invulnerable air
and the certainty
that as life wanes
love remains
John Lyons
Out of the rolling ocean
whispering you came to me
from afar out of the crowd
you came from the irresistible sea
and I who had travelled so far
merely to see you
merely to touch you
was touched by your beauty
by the silence of your breath
out of the rolling ocean
and looking so I feared
that I might lose you
back into the cohesive crowd
and so remain separated
in space and time
the land torn from the ocean
and no more hold you
at sundown when gulls
salute the air nor die again
for your sweet love
John Lyons
Based on a poem by Walt Whitman, “Out of the Rolling Ocean Crowd”
Soft-falling rain
through the night
the birdsong sharp
in the damp air
Those who have
dreams will wake
to fulfil them
those who have none
will linger in their beds
Soft-falling rain
has settled the dust
has refreshed the earth
where the dead lie
biding their time
John Lyons
Revised.
The lucidities of love
voiced in the unending desire
to touch that body of feelings
that she embodies
to yield to that state of grace
in her eager eyes
in her outstretched arms
into which one enters effortlessly
so as to capture the sweet taste
of time on her lips
Dawn glow of red sky
fired by the rising sun
that warms the earth
with its ardent light
drives lovers into
each others arms
fills the world with passion
beyond calibration
combustible love that lives
for itself within itself
that knowing no other
admits no retraction
John Lyons
and the origin
of tenderness
there in the stars
warmth and vibration
the dance of atoms
and molecules
and how we identify
with faces and places
kindred energies
all bound
in the same direction
the lines on our faces
drawn in time
desperate always
to prove that we
were here
and if we had
nothing but love
in our lives
wouldn’t we be
more than satisfied just
making each other’s day
sleeping under
the innocent
moonlight celebrating
the origin
of our primal being
that lifts us up
through tenderness
and desire
into an eternal
spring
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 