The correction, John Lyons (70 x 50 cm, oil on canvas)

It’s not quite a marriage
       but certainly a relationship
and sometimes the canvas
       has attitude and fights back
and there’s a tussle
       as to who knows best
it’s all about the shapes
       and colours applied

Don’t forget it says
       I have to live with
whatever you throw
       in my face whereas
you can just walk out
       abandon me
to my own devices
       pick up somewhere else

Of course there are
       always corrections
minor or major adjustments
       that need to be made
a rescue mission of sorts
       in a bid to save face
there’s an art to it
       and sometimes it succeeds
and sometimes it fails
       just like love so get over it

John Lyons

                      Landshape, John Lyons (70 x 50 cm, oil on canvas)

There are elements here
that may or may not
pertain to a landscape

The canvas itself is struggling
to know where it’s headed
though some of the shapes
are clearly defined

The sky’s a basin inverted
over time and distance
and there are doors and paths
behind which the unknown
skulks carefully secluded

Of course the composition’s
not finished — may well
never be finished
it all depends on finding
a happy resolution

John Lyons

Revised from yesterday’s version

                         Landscape with shapes, John Lyons (70 x 50 cm, oil on canvas)

This is the size of it
a glowing landscape with shapes
a visual puzzle that defies
the eye’s expectations

Truly the colours have been
distorted by the digital lens
and yet there is peace
and there is silence

you feel that life could lay down
another layer or take a different
approach or simply return
to the drawing board

What lies beneath the surface
and how could anyone call it art
a canvas so full of nowhereness
a composition aching to coalesce

John Lyons

To the sweet blueness
of a cloudless summer sky
in which red tulips
raise their chalices
in a cheery toast
to avid lips

as a stray spider
wanders aimlessly
across the dry surface
of my almost completed
canvas – strange world
to it it must seem

as a visitor scratches
his head wondering
why on earth he entered
the outdated world
of modern art

John Lyons

                               Air dance, John Lyons (50 x 50 cm, oil on canvas)

Measured movements
the body shifting

in time and space
think of the gravity

think of the rhythm
think of the journey

the steps taken
the ground covered

in leaps and bounds
choreographed air

dance of sunshine
under moon and stars

John Lyons

                       Unfinished, John Lyons (oil on canvas)

Ocean depths or
       a beach of buff titanium
unpainted patches
       or thin smears –
an unfinished canvas
       in which only some
of the angles are right
       a space awaiting
occupation
       decisions decisions

Outside
       the dawn chorus
no words to their songs
       another day of decisions
simmering reds and pinks
       and vibrant yellows
would brighten it up
       emotions brushed
under the carpet
       it’s so hard to say goodbye
and some paintings
       never leave the studio

John Lyons