art
Unfinished business
The colours we lay down
over the years in our lives
the different textures
of relationships
the shapes we make
with our world materials
Expressions of joy
or of pain
or of mystification
expressions of love
our markers
and our touchstones
Love was only ever good
in the making of it
in the breathing of it
generosities of the soul
affections so worded
that they warmed the heart
but life so fragmentary
and cursed by ambition
bonds broken
for thirty pieces of silver
John Lyons
Affaires inachevées
Les couleurs que nous déposons
au fil des années, dans nos vies
les différentes textures des relations
les formes que nous créons
avec les matériaux de notre monde
Expressions de joie
ou de douleur
ou de perplexité
expressions d’amour
nos repères
et nos points de repère
L’amour n’était bon
que dans sa création
dans son souffle
générosités de l’âme
affections si bien exprimées
qu’elles réchauffaient le cœur
mais la vie si fragmentaire
et maudite par l’ambition
liens brisés pour trente
pièces d’argent
Lear and his daughters
King Lear, John Lyons (24 x 30 cm, oil on canvas)
A method to the madness
an underlying grid a pattern
an old canvas pitted with pigment
swathed in buff titanium
upon which a trellis of cadmium red
and finally gentle strokes of the brush
to deposit patches of burnt umber
ashes to ash applied
Out of the earth Lear and his daughters
and the love that each has or has not
a stage for the passage of time
for a shift in the power of prevailing winds
Choices choices as the blood circulates
as the words vanish along with their breath
into thin air : the play is always the thing
the capture of colour under the fading light
When I was a boy I would have sold
my kingdom for a horse for a pony
to carry me off into the sunset
Now age has mottled my skin
and confined me to local horizons
under a heavy head of silver hair
I gather my dust and count
the few blessings that remain
: on my lips the tempestuous taste of real love
as in Spitalfields where the final curtain fell
John Lyons
Le roi Lear et ses filles
Une méthode dans la folie
une grille sous-jacente, un patron,
une vieille toile piquée de pigment,
enveloppée de titane chamois,
sur laquelle un treillis de rouge de cadmium,
et enfin de doux coups de pinceau pour déposer
des taches d’ombre brûlée,
cendres sur cendres appliquées
De la terre, Lear et ses filles,
et l’amour que chacun a ou n’a pas,
une scène pour le passage du temps,
pour un changement dans la force
des vents dominants, des choix, des choix,
comme le sang circule,
comme les mots disparaissent
avec leur souffle dans l’air : le jeu
est toujours l’essentiel,
la capture de la couleur
sous la lumière déclinante
Quand j’étais enfant, j’aurais vendu
mon royaume pour un cheval,
pour un poney, pour m’emporter
vers le coucher du soleil. Maintenant
que l’âge a marqué ma peau et m’a confiné
aux horizons locaux, sous une lourde
chevelure argentée, je ramasse la poussière
et compte les quelques bénédictions
qui me restent : sur mes lèvres le goût
tumultueux du véritable amour, comme
à Spitalfields où le rideau est tombé
pour la dernière fois.
The ineffable art of love
The River, John Lyons, (oil on canvas)
This is where we meet
in the eyes of the mind
or of the heart on streets
that the rain has swept
where early blooms
have defied the season
We traipse through
the long galleries
where feelings hang
in frames and we examine
the colours and the textures
of others’ lives
the long brush strokes
or flicks of the palette knife
and in the hall where
the bronze sculptures laze
a deep note sounds
of young whales
struggling to reach
the surface
And all day long
our shadows
are in hot pursuit
and our tongues
never cease to babble
and our convergence
has brought a new confection
into the world
There is after all
an ineffable art to love
John Lyons
L’art ineffable d’aimer
C’est ici que nous nous rencontrons,
dans le regard de l’esprit ou du cœur,
dans les rues balayées par la pluie,
où les premières fleurs ont défié la saison.
Nous déambulons dans les longues galeries
où les sentiments sont suspendus dans des cadres,
et nous examinons les couleurs et les textures
des vies d’autrui, les longs coups de pinceau
ou les effleurements du couteau à palette,
et dans le hall où les sculptures de bronze
se prélassent, résonnent les sons profonds
de jeunes baleines luttant pour atteindre la surface.
Et toute la journée, nos ombres nous poursuivent
sans relâche. et nos langues ne cessent de bavarder
et notre convergence a apporté une nouvelle friandise
au monde. Il y a après tout un art ineffable d’aimer.
Be minimum
Landscape, John Lyons (oil on canvas)
History – dead time – a past buried in
a chromatic wilderness – a burnt match
floating in a pool of dark rainwater –
an old hair on an old pillow case Be
minimum – with your words – in your actions
Resolve to move forward
to write new texts
in a world of warmth and affection The
past is scribble of fret and fear and
fate beyond absolution Be mini-
mum Cut to the quick Courage – conviction
Angels will appear on the edge of night
By day they will mingle with sparrows and
crows She who is not worthy will lose her
way Exercise discretion
Say no more
John Lyons
A salute to Robert Rauschenberg (2017)
Charlene, Robert Rauschenberg (1954)
Let’s throw some words at the page
see if they stick :
at this frail moment in time
I have no aspirations
I am neither a painter nor a pianist
but my imagination flickers still
I am a collage doused in my own colours
and not at all sure I have
the temperament for heaven
wherever that is
but I do love music and horses
and the way a canvas can draw me in
a composition that takes a firm grip
on my eye and offers me easy entry
doors or gates of perception I don’t mind
what’s in a label ?
whether it is nobler ?
beauty happens it just does as does truth
so remove the gauze from your eyes
put everything else aside
and get stuck into your life
how many do you think you have ?
comb the world for affections
and any found objects you can keep
in your silk-screened closet
be a chancer more than refusenik
erasure is the highest form of creation
its space affords a prelude
to multiple afterthoughts
and many other finer things
so please pay attention
isn’t that the message ?
John Lyons
Jackson Pollock rules
Jackson Pollock, Untitled
Days tumble one after the other dawn
to dusk Sometimes
in pure broad light sometimes
through an empty indeterminate dark
in which newspapers pave the way for time
to progress segmenting our lives into
events while extolling humanity’s
wounds and achievements
Art seeks to oppose
the indifference to simple being
in which jewels are jingled as trophies
worthless possessions heralded as signs
of worth and social standing Thus Jackson
Pollock rescued the rectangle and re-
vealed the sinews of a chaotic world
Promethean pigments poured on canvas
John Lyons
Ode to Joy
Ode to Joy, Joan Mitchell (oil on canvas, 1970)
Ode to Joy
Within these words many silences I
have nothing to say and I’m saying it
Overnight the world
has turned green : oak
ash sycamore on the skyline The sap
has risen and nature is rejoicing
The daffodils accomplish nothing nor
does the cherry blossom now lining the
gutter I think of space as silent dis-
tance I think of time as silent space wait-
ing to be used No more dying Frank wrote
in his ode to joy and then he died This
is life the bare bones of it the warm soft
tissue of it Live it and love it while
you can before cold death
puts you to bed
John Lyons
Click on the painting to follow a link to the Joan Mitchell Foundation
Henri Matisse
Matisse, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)
Blue is
the colour
With one leap
and a bound
Matisse entered
the room
Matisse means
movement
John Lyons
Tangled web
Tangled web, John Lyons (70 x 50 cm, oil and enamel paint on canvas)
We have been
over this ground
a thousand times
she said
This is the tangled web
we have woven—
a landscape
in which we can
barely distinguish
the wood for the trees
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 