Aimless art, John Lyons (25 x 30 cm, oil on canvas)
As the wind moves
through a field
of tall flowers
or through a forest
in winter
when all the leaves
have fallen
As it moves through
her hair displacing
the sunlight
as it goes
As her breath moves
through her lips
passes out
into the air
and the sound
of her laughter
of the voice shaped
by her words
her gentle smile
and the kiss
she blows
for me alone
John Lyons
Coffee grounds on yellow background, John Lyons
Memory is distance
over time
is wholeness
is struggle to prevent
fragmentation –
perceptions saved
within the senses
the dragonfly
that skimmed the pond
summer after summer
all those years ago
and the scent of cherry blossom
of peach and pear and plum
and cut grass
and ice on my tongue
the joy and sadness of rain
and winter dreams
and the discontent of bees
as flowers fade and dust gathers
on the gilded earth
and love comes lately
if it comes at all
Memory is sharpness
of the mind
we forage for it
and sometimes stumble
upon past realms
resurrected in the heart
savoured on the lips
or a soft voice heard
on the edge of night
a tender text of angels
a sudden knowledge
of years reborn
a body politic
to which we clasp
until daylight breaks
across our bones
John Lyons
Descent 2, John Lyons (50 x 70 cm, oil on canvas)
I make minor adjustments
to yesterday’s canvas
a thin additional strip
of cobalt blue
and an enlargement
of the buff titanium patch
Remnants of the underpainting
are clearly visible
and I am deciding whether or not
to eliminate them although
they’re a part of the painting’s history
or should I say archaeology
Whatever –
the painting is still there
lurking in a corner of my study
and I gaze at it from time to time
looking for small pointers
listening for signs that might
in some manner enrich it
before I let it loose
John Lyons
Descent, John Lyons (50 x 70 cm, oil on canvas)
Above the treetops
on the horizon
the early birds are
stretching their wings
practising aerodynamics
gliding back and forth
as they get a feel
for the new day
Soon they will be off
to their feeding grounds
but for now they’re celebrating
the fact that they have
come through the night –
they know that there is
food in abundance during
these summer months
that none of them
will go hungry
There is a reason
why we associate
angels with wings and
though their presence
is mysterious we know too
that they continually
move among us : sparrows
are their distant cousins
John Lyons
Isn’t it all an illusion
the shapes and colours
the proportions
the perspectives
the assumptions we bring
to the drawing table ?
What tricks of the trade
have been employed
what realities have been
abstracted and brushed over
to be replaced by sheer pigments
of the imagination ?
John Lyons
Willem de Kooning, Summer Couch, 1943
You get the picture
it’s a shut-in weekend
pale drizzle out on the streets
and Frank is home relaxing
after a hard few days
at the museum office
and he’s listening
to Grieg and to Prokofiev
to relieve those feeling-
sorry-for-oneself feelings
and he’s dreaming
of the painting
Dutch Willem de Kooning
has promised him
and because he’s Dutch
it has an orange bed in it
and Frank muses that it’s
more than the ear can hold
John Lyons
L’ange qui descend, John Lyons (50 x 70 cm, oil on canvas)
Yesterday seen
through an acre of grass
honeysuckle and petunias
peonies and nasturtiums
and sweet lavender in the air
and my life under glass
The rag and bone of me
and all the years
run through the mill
of the conversing mind
the long shadow of age
cast not as affliction
but as an accomplishment
classed under mighty oak
In his heart of hearts
the poet knows
that the nutshell
that the end of life
is life itself
and that every page
is a stage upon which
to strut his stuff
Pen to paper
with an eagle eye
he surveys it all
committed to the call
of truth – inspired
if not besotted
by the frenzied memory
of love’s youthful follies
In time the clouds
will dissipate
in time his silences
will ring loud and clear
the dead will cast off
their shrouds
and the angels among us
will dry their tears
John Lyons
Angel descending, John Lyons (50 x 70 cm, oil on canvas)
This is how angels descend
out of the blue into the pink
when least expected
free-falling through the universe
time and distance no object
space an illusion at best
at worst a failure
of the imagination
I defy you to say
that your life is complete
that there are no ragged edges
no moves you wish
you’d never made :
art affirms all things
it can declare love
and it can express regret
for a love that has
slipped away
art is a way of life
just as poetry is
and just as love is
hence the shoulder
on which we bear
all things
all our joys
and all our sufferings
and art brings colour
and warm words
and delight in the beauty
of shapes that take on
a new energy
when placed on canvas
or within the perimeters
of a poem : angels descend
when we are willing
to celebrate the rough patches
the incomplete journey
never the end
John Lyons
Simplified, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)
My hands tanned
mottled and freckled
have aged but not grown old
an absurdity I know
but it is as if
for reasons unknown
they have been spared
the ravages of time
I observe them
this way and that
hold them up
to the light
relieved that they are
still fit for purpose
secure too in the knowledge
that neither the right
nor the left one
will ever betray me
John Lyons
A bad marriage, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)
There are no abstracts
I paint what I see
sometimes what I see
in the paintings of others
There are no sardines
nor were there ever
but what looks like
some sort of seafood
though there is no blue
nor water no shade of sky
and the composition
is trapped within
a narrow palette
There is a continent
of white and a patch
of dark leather and yet
it amounts to nothing
that we can define
Words and colours
are poor relations
each one jostling
hopelessly
to out-express
the other
John Lyons
The painting illustrated is an unfaithful copy of a painting by William Scott (1913-1989) which can be viewed in Tate Britain.
johnjosephlyons 