Author: irlandesuk

The magnolias are in bloom

irlandesuk poetry

Hilliers Spring Blossom (8th April 2014)

Wake to the soothing song
of birds who exist
outside of history
and beyond our fragile
moral codes

Their song that says
let’s build a nest
let’s raise a family
let’s propagate
the species

let’s reproduce
the timeless harmonies
of generations past
knowing only peace
and the absence
of enmity

Is love really that complex
and if so should it be so ?
Surely dog eat dog is nothing
to be proud of nor blind
ambition nor envy nor hatred

The magnolias are in bloom
: admire their beauty
and ask for nothing more
than the warmth of affection
a hand to take your hand

John Lyons

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Nothing ever ends

irlandesuk poetry

Unknown portrait
                   Unknown, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

Nothing ever ends
        nothing is ever finished
a portrait
        a poem
nothing is ever complete
        And so a day a week a year
a lifetime : how could love
        ever be exhausted

A cluster of actions
        condensed around
a burning star
        ash of our hours
in which the kiss
        is mightier
than the sword

In Margravine we sat
        and consumed our love
as squirrels played
        among the headstones
and we were driven
        by the wisdom
of our feelings

Bluebells grew
        in the shadow
of the cemetery wall
        and here and there
crocuses
and daffodils

There is no reason
        for love : it simply is
of necessity and brooks
        no denial    So too poetry
the passion according
        to my heart

John Lyons

The body thrives

irlandesuk poetry


That we are things
        things that think
we are stone
        made flesh

the atomic numbers
        within us that hold
our thoughts
        and our feelings

We search for meaning
        on all sides
and within ourselves
        direction and purpose

and we set great store
        by love in all forms
by beauty in all forms
        by truth in every instance

Though it may take an eternity
        the universe is countable
its infinity finite and bound
        by contraction—by attraction

love is the quantum
        song is its expression
light its revelation : the body
        thrives in its consummation

John Lyons

 

How Beautiful You Are

irlandesuk art, poetry , , ,

Art or a shared thought
        a certain fixed combination
of words or shapes
        or numbers in a mathematical
formula : a theorem or
        a theory

How when they are captured
        they transcend time and space —
the eternal curves of the lines
        presented on canvas
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
        that transport us to 1907
and beyond

They mixed pigments
        by the fireside
before daubing the walls : later
        panels or cloth stretched
on a frame that allowed
        the walls to be transported

Is it the heart
        or the mind that delights
in infinite things ?
        Let’s call them
death cheaters

Art
        Imagination
Creation
        The music of the spheres
harmony abounds
        and our senses
soak it all up

How beautiful the nightingale
        How beautiful the Grecian Urn
Autumn fields heavy with dew
        The cold North
and the warm South
        The drowsy Mediterranean

How beautiful the body
        How beautiful life
How beautiful love
        How beautiful the air
we breathe    How beautiful
        you are

John Lyons

Highly recommended, The Cloud of Witness a retrospective of paintings by Keith Cunningham at the Newport Street Gallery till 21 August 2022. Free admission.

Alive loves

irlandesuk poetry ,

The art and understanding
        of small children
innocent seeds sown
        into the dust

All that grows
        flourishes
flowers
        that brings beauty
in time

See how the leaves
        have burst forth
how spring has renewed
        the face of our earth

The remedy
        against the clock
is to steep oneself
        in art
according to
        Zukofsky

to make of life
        a long paradise
to cultivate one’s
        own garden of eden

Alive loves

John Lyons

Gratitude

irlandesuk poetry

And then there is
        silence
the blank page
        the primed canvas
but every image retained
        internally

All the memories
        held in the breath
mindfulness
        gratitude
for all the love
        granted : acceptance
for all the lost love
        The story we once
wove hand in hand
        before we went
our separate ways
        down the age

John Lyons

Bones of the earth

irlandesuk art, poetry

face_detail
                   Face detail in earth pigments, John Lyons

That constant urge
        to create—to re-present
the world around us
        upon stretched cloth
that grows in the fields
        daubed with silica and clay
with manganese
        and hydrated iron oxide

We carry these pigments
        in our bones
we who have sprung
        from the very bones
of the earth
        all the hardness
and the softness
        of our bodies
and our eyes
        devouring everything
we see
        shape and colour
texture and weight
        our lives a constant
interpretation
        of what it means
to be and to live
        and to love

John Lyons

Portrait of the artist

irlandesuk art, poetry

Revised face
               Face, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

I know this face
        from somewhere
those piercing eyes
        looking out from the canvas

There have been subtle shifts
        since it last appeared
alterations in the tone—
        the cadmium red sharpened
the yellow ochre lightened
        the titanium white
slightly buffed to lower
        the intensity

I think of this study
        as a field or a terrain
out of which an image
        emerges organically
much as though
        it were alive

I like the uneven
        surface of the land
the imperfections
        the different shades
and tones

a face from the earth
        and of the earth
dust of my dust
        which once was

John Lyons

Our common ownership

irlandesuk poetry ,

A poem for all seasons
syllables at the ready
sounds good

The subtle shift
from crocuses
to daffodils

as high pressure
settles in across
the continent

We have so much
to be thankful for
yet give such

little thanks : so much
life squandered
to no purpose

It’s not a competition
earth fire water air
belong to us all

No one should
own life : no one
should own death

love should be
our inalienable common
ownership

John Lyons

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Eugenio Montejo – Caracas

irlandesuk poetry, translation ,

2000_mall_caracas

Caracas seen from the Milleniumm de Los Dos Caminos Mall

So tall are the buildings that
nothing of my childhood remains to be seen.
I’ve lost my back yard with its slow clouds
where the light dropped ibis feathers,
Egyptian clarities.
I’ve lost my name and the dream of my house.
Rigid walkways, tower upon tower,
now hide the mountain from us.
The din grows a thousand engines per ear,
a thousand cars per foot, all deathly.
Men chase after their voices
but the voices drift
behind the taxis.
More distant than Thebes, Troy, Nineveh
and the fragments of their dreams,
where was Caracas?
I’ve lost my shadow and the feel of its stones.
Nothing of my childhood remains to be seen.
I can grope my way through its streets now
increasingly lonely;
its space is real, unflinching, solid concrete.
only my history is false.

Eugenio Montejo
(translation by John Lyons)

See Eugenio Montejo 21 grams