art

The year ending

irlandesuk art, poetry

40 x 40_Tiny dancer
                                  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

Baudelaire – Exotic perfume

irlandesuk art, poésie, poetry , ,

Jeanne Duval was the Haitian-born mistress of Charles Baudelaire. She is captured in the portrait (1862) below by Édouard Manet

Jeanne_Duval

Exotic Perfume

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

A poetry of familiar things

irlandesuk art, poésie, poetry ,

cascade
          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

Love’s betrayal

irlandesuk art, poetry

landscape
                 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

Tsunami of love

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

deluge
          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

irlandesuk art, poetry

spiral
         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

The quality of light

irlandesuk art, poetry

starleaf
             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

Paul Éluard – Clouds in my hands

irlandesuk art, poésie, poetry ,

Man Ray

This confused despair
Impalpable source rainy night
Far from burgeoning leaves
Far from salubrious tears
This disdain of the Orient
This livid paradise
This backtracking
Exhausted unbeliever
Towards a handful of memories

The miracle cure accords gift trust.

From Les mains libres (1937), drawings by Man Ray

Des nuages dans les mains
Ce désespoir confus
Source impalpable nuit de pluie
Loin des feuilles naissantes
Loin des larmes salubres
Ce dédain de l’orient
Ce paradis livide
Cette marche en arrière
Incrédule exténuée
Vers quelques souvenirs

Le remède miracle accord cadeau confiance.

Times unsung

irlandesuk art, poetry

buff titanium
         Buff titanium, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

Time is distance
and distance is also
unused time

How wasteful of us
to be apart
our hands
our arms
our lips pointless
in this drought
of love

Dreams that have gone
their separate ways
rose petals that unfold
in a wilderness of dust

It was invention
that kept us together
a shared language
of gestures

This coldness
is a failure
of the imagination
this silence
the kiss of death

John Lyons