Venus Flytrap

Strange flowers
       strange savages
that prey upon
       living prey
the Cobra Lily
       the Monkey Cup
the Venus Flytrap
       the Australian Sundew
seductive beauties
       with beguiling names
enticing the innocent
       into the moist
treacherous lips
       of sudden death

John Lyons

Looking outwards
a hill topped
by ancient woodland
a pale-blue sky in which
the white clouds are drifting
slowly northwards

In the face
of a stiff breeze
the trees are standing
their ground
but there are dry
golden leaves floating
in the air

This is the season
of sweet chestnut
that soon I will gather
and roast and turn
into a delicious soup

Today no rain
has fallen
but at dawn I heard
the gnashing of foxes’ teeth
and shortly after
the raucous cry of gulls
unusual for them to be
so far from the river

Sometimes it takes
virtually nothing
for a day to be sublime

John Lyons

This is the world
       in which we walk
: leaves peppered
       with dark spots
and shotholes and
       cankers on the trunk
and dieback
       here and there
on the branches
       or blossom blast
in spring or
       early summer
when flowering shoots
       wilt or wither

And the question – why is it
       that disease is
an integral part
       of nature’s process ?
and why do some trees
       die while most survive ?

I stand on the ocean shore
       in awe of its eternal tides
No silence can compete
       with its incessant roar
no rock can withstand
       its ravenous tongue
and I think of her gentle face
       and of all the love
that time so simply
       swept away