Leaf, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
The sycamore senses
the lengthening days
knows that a curve
has been passed
Its leaves tightly packed
in the buds are biding
their time ; they are aware
of their purpose in life
Poetry is not an imaginary
world – it’s as real as
those leaves patiently
waiting to burst forth
John Lyons
Tiny dancer, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)
The living dance
upon dead minds
believe in moon magic
threaten to destroy
the earth with misplaced
enthusiasms and dreams
Time is no refuge
and no doors can
remain bolted forever
Pick up your spoons
and dig into the daily
gruel and accept the cards
you have been dealt
The only splendour
here below is love
but remember it cannot
be put into words nor
can it be photographed
Disdain all those
who would betray it
they are not worth the soil
in which they are buried
John Lyons
Jeanne Duval was the Haitian-born mistress of Charles Baudelaire. She is captured in the portrait (1862) below by Édouard Manet
When, on a warm autumn eve, my eyes closed
I breathe in the fragrance of your warm breast
I see happy shores unfurl before me
lit up by the fires of a monotone sun;
A languorous island where nature produces
Strange trees and luscious fruits;
Men with slender vigorous bodies,
And women who stun with the candour of their eyes.
Led by your fragrance to these charming climates,
I see a port teeming with sails and masts
All wearied still by the sea swell,
While the perfume of green tamarinds,
That drifts in the air and fills my nostrils,
Melds in my soul with the sailors’ songs.
Charles Baudelaire
(translation by John Lyons)
Parfum exotique
Quand, les deux yeux fermés, en un soir chaud d’automne,
Je respire l’odeur de ton sein chaleureux,
Je vois se dérouler des rivages heureux
Qu’éblouissent les feux d’un soleil monotone;
Une île paresseuse où la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l’oeil par sa franchise étonne.
Guidé par ton odeur vers de charmants climats,
Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de mâts
Encor tout fatigués par la vague marine,
Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers,
Qui circule dans l’air et m’enfle la narine,
Se mêle dans mon âme au chant des mariniers.
— Charles Baudelaire
Cascade, John Lyons (oil on canvas)
A poetry of familiar things
a sparrow or a rose
or flowering mimosa
a simple summer cotton dress
decorated with flowers
which she wears with pride
The families that traipse
up and down
the Promenade des Anglais
in Nice : the blue sea
and the blue sky
the heat of the day
in August
Chagall and Matisse
and Italian sorbets
and the insatiable thirst
for love and life
John Lyons
Une poésie des choses familières
un moineau ou une rose
ou mimosa en fleurs
une simple robe d’été en coton
décorée de fleurs
qu’elle porte avec fierté
Les familles qui traînent
haut et bas
la Promenade des Anglais
à Nice : la mer bleue
et le ciel bleu
la chaleur du jour
en août
Chagall et Matisse
et des sorbets italiens
et la soif insatiable
d’amour et de vie
Landscape, John Lyons (paper collage)
How light moves
among the branches
in late November
when the leaves
have fallen
and how silently
the squirrels move
now that there’s
no foliage to brush
against their tails
for a few months
the treeline fades
into the horizon
and the eye adjusts
to the effects of winter
at night the black sky
fills with stars or
with an icy moon
that shivers
in the cold universe
and so we sleep on
and dream of passion
and long for the rebirth
of daffodils and roses and
an end to love’s betrayal
John Lyons
Erasures, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
No destiny other than words
actions carved from light
narratives from the heart
a domicile of tenderness
lovers blood-partnered
and bound by skin and bone
marigolds for all seasons
soft whispered caresses
in the blind crucible of space
in which dying stars
plead with the universe
for a peppering of kisses
for an exemption
from the death of energy
a prorogation of love
amid the lucid silence
the flotsam and jetsam
of old persuasions
John Lyons
Tsunami, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
There is always something
to pierce through
the heavy greyness of the day
in which mouldering leaves
continue to detach
from the mothership –
time is sand
and leaves and detritus
and irrevocable decay
but it is also opportunity
in which to create a space
for happiness and for love
we should all learn
the sparrow’s song
and keep our eyes open
scouring our line of vision
for the angels who are
always there waiting
to be invited
into our hearts
to be buried
in a deluge of love
is not such a bad thing
I would have thought
John Lyons
Three’s a crowd, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
We’re all winning
we’re alive
for the time being
I could sit here all day
and count squirrels
running across the tops
of the garden fences
or the coming and going
of magpies and pigeons
sometimes gathering
on the garden furniture
sometimes on the shed roof
or the black and white cat
that pads around
in a world of its own
daydreaming
of something fun to chase
tiny rodents for example
Yesterday a fox
sitting proudly
on a pile of earth
surveying its domain
taking a break
from the family
Today is Sunday
a slow news day –
she might have written
I’d hoped she would
but she didn’t
John Lyons
Autumn, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
a line taken from
a poem by Frank O’Hara
who describes
the stubbornness
of his feelings
that simply won’t
shift no matter what
Is art ever
anything but
an act of love ?
I leave this
to the reader
to figure out
John Lyons
Starleaf, John Lyons (acrylic on paper)
Well here we are
and what are we going to do ?
It’s not as though the questions
ever change just the seasons
that rotate and the leaves fall
and we look each other
in the eye and ask ourselves
how long can this go on ?
And yet we have learned
to read the universe
like a book and we know
that falling leaves
are star fragments
that energy and mass
are bosom buddies
that nothing ventured
is ever lost in the infinite
sum of things and that
love has the quality of light
which never fades
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 