Year in year out
the apple tree
blossoms in spring
and by the end
of summer
its branches hang
heavy with fruit
Year in year out
autumn strips
the tree of its leaves
and thus it endures
the winter naked
and forlorn
its branches trembling
in the biting wind
But come spring. . .
John Lyons
A life played by ear
hark to what I say
wherever the feet lead us
we respond to words
or to the intimation of words
all things labeled
and described
catalogued
How the universe
longed for language
and for the relationships
it enables and fosters
the thoughts and dreams
and the acts of love
Our prayers fly up
our words remain
among the simplicities
of the rose
and the comfort
of lips touching
John Lyons
The image of a voice
how can that be ?
sound that conveys
sight or vice versa
Paradise
is a word mouthed
as is love :
lips that evolved
to enable the kiss
And the wagging tongue
loose within
the buccal cavity
fraught with danger
The weight of history
moving between
the two banks of the river
O how they’ve changed
over time
The rise and sink of life
and she marooned there
on the margins of that place
Mudflats when the tide recedes
A river pours into
its own mouth
and disappears
John Lyons
With immaculate
white wings
the swan thrashes
the river surface
at Henley
before regaining
its elegant poise
proud of the space
it occupies
in its succinct
universe
John Lyons
For a moment a swan
down by the river
at Henley
the unspoilt beauty
of immaculate white wings
and so it thrashes them
and in the process
throws up
a spray of water
before it settles
back down
and elegantly dips its bill
below the unsettled surface
as though to drink
or refresh
its throat
and as the sun sets
its regal poise
once more regained
it glides off upriver
to be lost forever
to my prying eye
John Lyons
“The test of poety is the range of pleasure it affords as sight, sound and intellection. This is its purpose as art.”
Louis Zukofsky, A Test of Poetry (1948)
It rained all night
and it’s raining still
and I’ve lost all sense
of summer
I look at the grass
and wonder
could it get any greener
Fruit hangs heavy
on the branches
but many trees
have already slipped
into autumn
and the birdsong
is thin and laconic
My face in the mirror
is pale
but undefeated
I will wait for you
down by the pier
as I always do
in the hope that today
you’ll show
John Lyons
The shapes of silence
an empty doorway
an open window
at which no one is seen
the shadow of an oak tree
that does not stir
the trail of space
that a cat leaves
behind it as it ambles
across a garden
or wanders along
an abandoned path
alongside the railway
or a blackbird
or perhaps a crow
pecking at recently
ploughed soil
or as the day
dissolves into night
a pine forest engulfed
in darkness
the air tinder dry
and a sense
of expectation
of a tale
about to be told
John Lyons
The greatest of all illusions
is the sky in all its manifestations
it simply doesn’t exist :
that space where it rains or snows
or blows up a storm or brings us
a wide blue summer’s day
does not exist though so often
our hopes are pinned upon it
there is light and there is dark
and there is the air and beneath it
the earth of the imagination
the very substance of our lives
that we tread daily
while raising our godforsaken eyes
up to the heavens for some sign
even though every orientation
we could ever need is always here
within the flesh of our hearts
John Lyons
Here where I walk
remembering
knowing that words
are not love
but that words may sustain
the memory of love
or the presence of love
as the custodians
of our thoughts
and of our feelings
and so here in these gardens
with you I walk remembering
and at the same time
I lay down fresh memories :
here are the marigolds
of my childhood
and the weeping willows
the oaks and the sycamores
the ducks and the geese
and the swans
all descendants
of those days and the lawns
where I once picnicked
under the shade of an elm
John Lyons
