Author: irlandesuk

As I grow older

irlandesuk poetry

As I grow older

As I grow older
         I live in fear
of repeating myself
         my ideas
my words
         and my errors
my mistakes :
         time and again
I have taken
         the same path
time and again
         been blind
to the obvious

the rose may live
         as an archetype
but we cannot :
         a rose has nothing
to learn whereas
         we have it all
to work out
         a rose grows
in the light
         we stumble
in the darkness
         and some
and are better learners
         and some never learn
and as I write these words
         I fear yet again that I am
repeating myself
         as I grow older

John Lyons

Daybreak

irlandesuk poetry

Daybreak

All in ciphers
         our stars and our destinies
the night havens
         in which we lie cocooned
before the day tolls
         once again

Grey frosty start
         but soon to be blue
the day will rise
         and we with it
wrapped in our hopes
         and in all our ambitions
eager to pursue
         the secular light
returning as evening falls
         to love’s sweet precinct
to sight and sound and soft
         welcoming flesh

Time is a translation
         a version of ourselves
never accurate
         because never complete
: time lives in the memory
         and in love it dies

John Lyons

Deadheading

irlandesuk poetry

Deadheading

When a rose is spent
or has completed its bloom

and is beginning to wilt
it should be removed

This is done to keep roses
looking attractive

and it encourages more blooms
Deadheading tricks a rose bush

into focusing on budding
and flowering new roses

rather than expending energy
on dying roses or producing seeds

And remember what Gertrude said
a rose is a rose is a rose

don’t mess with the parameters
things are as they are

and their beauty is intrinsic
don’t mess with roses

and don’t mess with love

John Lyons

That day

irlandesuk poetry , ,

That day

That day we cycled
         around the outskirts
of Regent’s Park
         and down by the canal
under a blistering sun
         and we paused
and strained our necks
         to see the giraffes
through the fence and
         admire their graceful
almost balletic steps
         as they moved about
with such poise
         and such elegance
and such cool indifference
         to all the spectators

And then we sat in the park
         and ate ice-cream cones
that dripped incessantly
         in the unspeakable heat
:
         that was a day to remember
and one well worthy of verse

John Lyons

Lines thrown away

irlandesuk poetry

Lines thrown away

There are no secret codes to love
nor does it ever defy understanding

simplicity is as inherent to it as beauty
to the rose or sweetness to honey

we know what it is though we may
at times wish it was something else

or someone else or another time
or another place or just another face

John Lyons

Roses

irlandesuk poetry

Roses

Roses are naturals
         they bloom from year to year
first the tiny bud
         that bides its time
almost imperceptible
         until it swells in spring
and as summer enters
         splits apart
to permit the petals
         to spread in all their glory

Roses are naturals
         they have no agenda
other than to be 
         what they are
to add a little glamour
         to the garden
or to the parlour
         to welcome the honeybee
to soak up the morning dew
         to languish in the late
summer sun

Roses are naturals
         they invite endless admiration
and thrive on poetry
         proud of their beauty
they long to be praised
         but remember the thorns
are always there
         and they must be handled
with great care

John Lyons

Why this world ?

irlandesuk poetry , ,

Why this world ?

Mid-September walking down
         Fitzjohn’s Avenue in Hampstead
pavements carpetted
         in dry brittle leaves
autumn with a vengeance
         and I think
be articulate
         be vocal
be demonstrative
         and beware
you may indeed find
         what you are looking for
and yet lose what you have
         money is a broad church
ambition too
         and love is not a lifestyle

Then on to Maresfield Gardens
         to the house where Sigmund Freud
lived his final years
         and which he called
‘our last address on this planet’
         and I wonder where he thought
he was headed
         perhaps to the Western Lands
of Egyptian mythology
         and how we are
to the best of our knowledge
         the only conscious beings
in the universe
         and for that reason its centre
although it has no centre
         and with consciousness
the need to express
         to understand and share
our inner thoughts
         and our feelings
to represent them
         in language and in every
conceivable art
         to communicate through
broad verbal gestures
         and I read Sharon Olds
and the outpourings
         of raw emotion in her poetry
as daughter mother and partner
          acutely perceptive and confessional
centred as she is on
         the intimacies and obsessions
around her sexuality
         and filled with vital images
that remind me that I too
         have seen healing sunshine
penetrate another body
         seen the light absorbed
in the hair and under the skin
         and into the smile
and known that love
         is not an object
nor an attitude
         of the will or the mind
but an irresistible gravitational
         urge or movement
towards another being
         I too saw one such sit
legs crossed
         by the open window
and watched
         as recollections of the past
percolated through her sensibility
         her hair swept back
and on her thin lips
         an expression
of unfinished business
         and why this world
in which so little
         is ever truly owned
except perhaps
         in the nakedness of love
and the conviction
         that it is the only thing
that mitigates
         against the final
handful of ash and dust
         tossed pointlessly
from the Brooklyn Bridge
         or some such height

Late swell of summer sun
          with the beauty and silence
of vast autumn migrations
         abandoned lives
hung in wardrobes
         epic manifestations
of the providential body
         and each word
each chosen action
         weighed in the balance
praying for the wisdom
         God help us
to know love when we see it
         to respond to love when we feel it
and again
         why this world
and was any of this
         all the chaotic stuff of years
anything other than
         really necessary
to quote Wallace Stevens
         a thoroughly necessary life
and a necessary love
         and longing to lie
secure and at ease
         in the accuracy
of her necessary arms and to be
         finally acknowledged

John Lyons

Paradise

irlandesuk poetry

Paradise

In this neck of the woods
         not much is happening
there is a full moon
          partially eclipsed
by ragged clouds
         I can hear cars in the distance
and from time to time
         a train cuts through the silence
I suppose it must be said
         that we make our own paradise
just as we make the bed we lie on
         From my window I see
the dark shadows of trees
         hardly stirring at all
given that the air is still
         These trees are alive
and I know that many of them
         will outlive me
for a tree life is no big deal
          / storms aside /
its day-to-day is pretty routine
         growth comes in spurts
but it’s never going to be
         anything other than what it is
Under one of these trees
         foxes may gather
in the early hours
         conviviality is in their genes
just as it is in ours
         and all life depends
on the same things
         nourishment
sustenance of some sort
         energy that comes
from the stars
         stored in the cells
that we eat
         so often unthinkingly
Whether it is pride
         or simple ignorance
we are the only living
         creatures in the whole
universe that do not know
         our place and it’s perhaps
for this reason
         that we take so much
for granted
         and are so slow to act
when paradise
         our paradise
appears to slip
         from our grasp

John Lyons

To think of time

irlandesuk poetry

To think of time

To think of time again
         to think of all things
in retrospect
         and of the years
that lie before me
         eager as I am
to live them to the full
         To think of love
and how love
         has saved me
from myself
         Not a day passes
that I do not think of her
         of the warm pulse
beneath her skin
         of our kisses
and of the way
         she takes me
into her arms
         with total acceptance
the trust within which
         there are no boundaries
To think of the future
         and of how some things
have fallen into decay
         how my veins
have thickened
         and my hair
has lost all colour
         and my limbs
their agility but
          how still the passion
drives me forward
         and how in every
real sense I am
         more alive now
than ever before
         To think of her
and how all caution
         has been thrown
to the wind
         because life
in its beauty
         is only the truth
and love lived
         to their ultimate
consequences
         no ifs and no buts

John Lyons

Perhaps

irlandesuk poetry

Perhaps

What more can you do
than take each day as it comes

my life has been a trail of words
and the past cannot be undone

just as the pink petals
of the roses you bought

are doomed to dust
though other roses 

will take their place
The earth is full of life

and full of lives
that have had their day

Perhaps these words
will transcend 

perhaps not
Perhaps our intimacy

our hunger 
for each other’s flesh

will go the distance
become the stuff of legend

and inspire young lovers
to seek ever greater heights

Perhaps
Perhaps not

John Lyons