Author: irlandesuk

A complex of occasions

irlandesuk poetry

A complex of occasions
        a life
three score and ten
        : to have known love
more than once
        and for the memory
to burn as a flame
        in the mind

Yesterday in April still
        the first white butterfly
of the season
        gliding above the debris
in the railway cutting

All things are measures
        of other things
some trees now in flower
        others with foliage
about to burst forth

Beneath the complexity
        the cycles that drive
the natural world
        the song of the nightingale
and the manmade beauty
        of the Grecian urn

and the web of words
        that binds us together
in communities and
        in our homes and
in our hearts
        and in our beds

John Lyons

Fibres of our being

irlandesuk poetry ,

The light the air
the dust falling
gently back
into the earth

How detached we’ve become
from the peace of stars
and the cycles
that gave birth
to the very fibres
of our being

How divided the world
split off from the universe
by arrogance and pride
by blind ambition
and by anger and violence

But life is the truth itself
the supple flesh that glows
in the darkness
the warmth of blood
the warmth of affection
the warmth of desire
that hungers only
to serve love

The sun the moon
the stars : these are
neither myth nor metaphor
they are our kith and kin
our brethren ever since
mass first exploded
into energy and created
time

Time time time
with its subtle taste
of eternity

John Lyons

Bone dust

irlandesuk poetry

Cosmic ash drifting
           through the universe
and that special light in Venice
           in which the artists
caught a glimpse of heaven
           a composite of glorious colour
every square inch adorned
           and the word that survives
: layer upon layer of faith
           in the promise of rewards
to come and the art
           a bulwark against
falsehood and betrayal
           trust and steadfast belief
truth cut into stone
           or worked
into precious metal
           honesty of the artist
valued for all time
           love honoured in all ways

John Lyons

Best foot forward

irlandesuk poetry

Three score and ten
        summers
to my name
        since I first breathed
the breath of life

Time’s pastime
        is to pass
All that remains
        is what we create
out of feelings

At best
        a sense of structure
the art of the fugue
        melody rhythm
harmony
        all give shape
to the silence

the square root
        of it all
is love

So best foot forward—
        what touches the heart
the play within
        the play
the truth
        of universe

John Lyons

A new knowledge

irlandesuk poetry , ,

Tikal

                     It was like
                    A new knowledge of reality.
                                                     Wallace Stevens

As evening falls,
    so too, the relentless rain, the air
        dense with the stench of rotting
    vegetation. I am typing a letter to
        myself and there are children all

around me,
    curious to see the neat rows of black letters
        appear on the crisp white paper. So few
    typewriters make it to the forest depths.
        The rain does not ease and I’m

sitting now
    in the restaurant run by an elderly Chinaman
        who is desperate to buy my wristwatch.
    There are candles on the tables and they
        splutter and die as clouds of termites

envelope them:
    they are relit and die again, charred termites
        trapped in the smouldering wax. It is almost
    impossible to talk through these flurries of insects
        that find their way into ears and mouths

and nostrils.
    Mortality borne on frail white wings. An ancient
        city quarried from limestone lies now in ruins.
    a place of visitation rather than a centre of celebration.
        The Mayan time wheel halted in its tracks.

At dawn
    the mists rise above the temple pyramids, monkeys
        haul themselves over dilapidated walls, and deer
    and tapirs roam freely; wild turkeys scavenge
        in the undergrowth, unperturbed by the raucous

caw of toucans
    and parrots in the branches above. No human
        prayer will bring this city back to life.
    Nature has regained control: or rather, one life has
       surrendered to another in all its tacit mystery.

14 October 2004

John Lyons

Just like love

irlandesuk art, poetry

Venetian red

             Venetian red, John Lyons (40 x 40, oil on canvas)

Out of the red earth
        a light warm pigment
from pure ferric oxide
        the iron in the blood
of Renaissance art
        used with lime white
to create skin tones
        faces and hands
and naked bodies

Here in the background
        to an embryonic study
of a human head
        a first pass over
the main features
        to relay the exacting
geometry of eyes
        forehead chin nose
and mouth : a synthesis
        like all art — statement
and understatement
        observation and adjustment
much like life
        much like love

John Lyons

Love and understanding

irlandesuk poetry

At night open skies
not a single cloud
pinpricks of light
from the wise stars

tissue of my flesh
woven from their energy
all my hopes all my desires
driven by their impulse

Nothing hidden under a bushel
the illuminations of art
and the written word
predicated on sight and insight

Reason and rhyme :
we’re here to make sense
as a child learns to count
to place a finger on the pulse

Love and understanding
all that brings satisfaction
and contentment
to the restless heart

John Lyons

Mon plaisir

irlandesuk poetry

IMG_0510

When I next saw you
you’d cut your hair :
the style suited you
made you look younger

A fresh start I thought
an attempt to break
with the past and move
on with your life : but

when we rode the subway
your lips were tense
your posture stiff and
your heart elsewhere

John Lyons

Keeping track of the past

irlandesuk poetry , ,

Peggy

I retain all the restaurant bills
        and museum and cinema tickets
as markers in the books I read
        I know that on 10 February 2017
we paid a visit to the Guggenheim
        on that magical trip to Venice
: there there were the de Koonings
        that we both admired

The heiress Peggy Guggenheim
        who collected writers and artists
and artworks of all kinds : and we
        who created our own intimate collection
of words to describe who we were
        such as walkers and talkers
and so much more So I always know
        for certain precisely where we once
were but today I really don’t know
        where exactly you are now

John Lyons