It’s a long story
this fondness for words
for thoughts and feelings
and I imagine a coastline
the contours of which
I have been travelling
all my life hoping
to unravel some secrets
but the eye always anxious
for new perceptions
the ear always longing
for new music
and the heart always
looking for love
John Lyons
From what our bodies are built
products of energy and time
things just as a king is a thing
so too the commodities
that once passed through these docks
things shifting things
in crates and boxes
brain and brawn as lifting gear
their energies fired up for the day
loading and unloading under a blazing sun
and the slow burn of all life
and Tooley Street ablaze
with pushers of paper
and thoughts and ideas
ten fingers to take the strain
thoughts to hands
and hands to thoughts
knowledge and sensation
and every breath captured
new patterns of words
new-voiced visions
and people not property
make a city and all made
in time and in love
John Lyons
Revisitation
What will set the tone
of this day : the bright sun
reflected on the golden leaves
or the fallen leaves that the wind
has scattered across the lawn ?
What will set the tone
of this day if you are there
and not here where I
would want you to be
and your voice is only heard
remotely from afar ?
What should set the tone
of this day if I should shiver
as I type these words
and wonder what the coming
hours will bring if not you back
A park in winter
trees I have known all my life
tennis courts where I once played
the mansion house restored
the stables converted
into a public house
but little else changed
Here I spent a summer’s day
sat on a bench and asked myself
what it was all about :
young families came and went
and a dog chased after a ball
its owner had thrown
and now I have returned
and impossible to count
the leaves on the ground
or to guess the age of the trees
or the number of birds singing
as I go on my necessary way
John Lyons
what would we do
without them
words for everything
written and spoken
fanning out across
the face of the earth
a parallel universe
of words expanding
exponentially
there seems to be
no end to them
A whole culture
built upon them
a whole faith too
tell us o wise one
of the beauty and truth
of words
John Lyons
I walk in the same woods
where I was born many years ago
ancient woodland
down by the railway track
here where the smell of decay
is matched by the odour
of fresh vegetation
my story unfolding
amid the ferns and fungi
in the understory
where the light struggles
to break through
What is this thing called life ?
Time and energy made me
as it makes all things
just as a king is a thing
and I have travelled so far
to be back where I started
John Lyons
Rose without thorns
there is no delight
in the absence
of challenge
John Lyons
Tracing of lines
the poet
the painter
the lover
fingers poring
over a map
over a canvas
or a body
hovering over
a piece of paper
or keyboard
the mind that sees
in sequence
the voice
sings
as it composes
love within
the narrative
the trail we leave
behind us
John Lyons
At midday I notice a fox
sitting Buddha-like
on the shed roof
motionless
from its vantage point
it appears to be lost
in thought
as it stares out into space
with its fine thick well-fed fur
it looks a picture of health
and seems not to have
a care in the world
a white cat with
black patches
enters its field of vision
but the fox does not stir
a philosophical fox
that lives and lets live
John Lyons
Not born of nothing
but from a substance
extracted from the stars :
and so our mineral minds
reason with our feelings
hearts remote yet not asunder
and everywhere number
and simplicities compounded
distance and space all relative
the objects of sense and love
a noise that radiates
throughout the known universe
the character of the affections
so deep that either was
the other’s mine and wisdom
an affair of the embedded soul
John Lyons
Tonight no stars
no mirror to my mood—
thick cloud rolled in from the west
and temperatures have risen
Rain or shine we make our luck
we also live and learn
as William woefully put it
So let’s not let remembrance
of things past drag us down
in sobbing sessions of sweet
silent thought : Get over it
and live for the day
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 