art

On the cutting room floor

irlandesuk art, poetry

  news1                       The cutting room floor, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, mixed media on canvas)

Think of the canvas
       as a board
as a Shakespearean stage
       imagine who treads here
Lear or Hamlet or Othello
       Ophelia or Desdemona

words words words
       cut up and thrown
haphazardly as though
       chance were a fine thing
all of this scissored
       out of yesterday’s news
present states
       relentlessly slipping
into the past
       make no bones about it

whether it were better
       or nobler in the mind
enough drama to last us
       a lifetime or more
decisions decisions
       that the artist must take
much editing to be done
       only twenty-four hours
before it’s time to sweep
       the cutting room floor

John Lyons

Heartwarming art

irlandesuk art, poetry

multicolour

                   Old news, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, mixed media on canvas)

These flowers
this background
these colours
are all old news –
clumsy shapes
that suggest
or hint at objects
in the real world
art being a parallel
fictional insertion

Nevertheless
time will not consume
these petals
although these vivid
hues may fade
under intense
and prolonged sunlight

but the expression
– artless but sincere –
speaks of beauty
and of a world untainted
by corruption

It seeks to please
the eye and warm
the heart of whoever
beholds it

John Lyons

Every word its shadow

irlandesuk art, poetry

gold rose
             Absence, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, mixed media on canvas)

In the absence
in the silence
in the stillness
in all simplicity
where dust falls
where light fades
where night comes
and night goes
and seasons shift
one after another
art endures
with its words
and images

every word
every flower
has its shadow
paper curls away
from the canvas
artificial but
not unreal
it purveys a notion
of timelessness
perhaps of serenity
and yet the colours
lack vibrancy
as though the art
were sleeping
a melancholy dream

what hand tends
these flowers
who observes them
who admires them
this gift of nature ?
beauty that makes
no demands
that soothes the mind
that satisfies the heart
that softens life’s
hard edges
speaks only
of love

John Lyons

Read the text

irlandesuk art, poésie, poetry

blue_roses

Blood-red roses
       against an anaemic sky
artificial petals
       that will never fall
time that will never pass
       hope that will never return
children who will never know
       the joy of peace unless
the sale of arms is suspended
        No flowers for the refugees
no food on their plates
       no light in their eyes

Read the text
       beneath the blooms
between the lines
       foreign aid cut
at the stem
       innocent people left
to wither and die
       for profit

John Lyons

Lisez le texte

Roses couleur de sang
       contre un ciel anémique
pétales artificiels
       qui ne tomberont jamais
un temps qui ne passera jamais
       l’espoir qui ne reviendra jamais
des enfants qui ne sauront jamais
       la joie de la paix à moins que
la vente d’armes ne soit suspendue
       Pas de fleurs pour les réfugiés
pas de nourriture dans leurs assiettes
       pas de lumière dans leurs yeux

Lisez le texte
       au-dessous des fleurs
entre les lignes
       l’aide internationale coupée
à la base
       des innocents abandonnés
au flétrissement et à la mort
       pour le profit

A bouquet of words

irlandesuk art, poetry

roses

A handsome woman
I met on a dark night
we talked some
and we danced some
and I stared into
her winsome eyes

I am a poet I said
I can create words
from other words
Imitation is so
loathsome said she

But I make sense
from my sensibility
I spluttered in reply
vacuums are gruesome
and yet silence on
the occasion of love
is so wholesome
and betrayal
so infantile and
so tiresome

John Lyons

Love’s last intelligence

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

eggshell

Put aside the sad smell of lilacs
and words that spread outwards
to smother the truth of solitude
Beneath this deep eggshell blue
all manner of things might appear
chance and happy circumstance
all that is about to be written

Breathe freedom
an absence of objects
a spacious peace in which
our innate nature may flourish
here is horizon and novelty
made from pigments that arise
out of the earth’s core

We are in the time of roses
we hunger for the nightingale’s song
we who for so long have clutched
at the elements of life
and yet for every failed ambition
for every dashed dream
a single wisdom has sheltered us
and that is that wordless love
articulates the last intelligence

John Lyons

Love’s plea

irlandesuk art, poésie, poetry

pleading

                  Nowhere, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

This is nowhere
a sketch on canvas
and in oils
of a place that exists
somewhere
in the imagination

It is real enough
but lacks the detail
of the reality
upon which
it is based

However
what it does suggest
is a parting of the ways
perhaps in Robert Frost
country
the road less travelled

What it captures
in its own way
is space and distance
and an immaculate
timelessness

I love the roundness
of the triangular patch
I love the softness
of its edges
and though unfinished
I feel it has a voice
a feminine voice
pleading for love

John Lyons

Plaidoyer d’amour

C’est nulle part
un croquis sur toile
et dans les huiles
d’un lieu qui existe
quelque part
dans l’imagination

C’est assez réel
mais il manque le détail
de la réalité
sur lequel
c’est basé

toutefois
ce qu’il suggère
est une séparation des chemins
peut-être au pays
de Robert Frost
le chemin le moins parcouru

Ce qu’il capture
à sa manière
est l’espace et la distance
et une intemporalité
immaculée

J’aime la rondeur
du patch triangulaire
J’aime la douceur
de ses bords
et bien qu’inachevé
Je sens qu’il a une voix
une voix féminine
et un cri d’amour

Our debris

irlandesuk art, poetry

flowers

        John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, mixed media)

What makes you think
that these are flowers
that they are meant 
for you or for another

ephemera cut
from newsprint
as flowers fade
as petals fall

This composition
is an act of resistance
an attempt to hold back
the passage of time

was our love an illusion
were we mere cut-outs
filling a virtual space
a virtual time

collage of names
of people and places
that constitute
an existence

the life-prints
that we leave
in our wake
our debris

John Lyons

Covid-19 – a meditation

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

flowers
                                               Covid-19, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, mixed media)

From newsprint
these flowers
standing in a vase
daubs of red paint
against a blue
background

How the eye
has its memory
plays tricks on us
creates a virtual
reality
fools us into thinking
fools us into feeling

Take a closer look
news of the pandemic
Covid-19 in faint type
and how the unconscious
brings colours
to the surface
creates unexpected
associations

and there is the light
reflected from the canvas
the bright cadmium hue
that captures today’s
glorious sunshine
tells of the happiness
in my heart

this art
this simple meditation
in times of emergency
is an agent of life
there is hope in shapes
cut with scissors
glued to a surface
that will hang forever
in my heart

John Lyons