“The test of poety is the range of pleasure it affords as sight, sound and intellection. This is its purpose as art.”
Louis Zukofsky, A Test of Poetry (1948)
poetry
Rainfall
Rainfall
It rained all night
and it’s raining still
and I’ve lost all sense
of summer
I look at the grass
and wonder
could it get any greener
Fruit hangs heavy
on the branches
but many trees
have already slipped
into autumn
and the birdsong
is thin and laconic
My face in the mirror
is pale
but undefeated
I will wait for you
down by the pier
as I always do
in the hope that today
you’ll show
John Lyons
Observations
Observations
The shapes of silence
an empty doorway
an open window
at which no one is seen
the shadow of an oak tree
that does not stir
the trail of space
that a cat leaves
behind it as it ambles
across a garden
or wanders along
an abandoned path
alongside the railway
or a blackbird
or perhaps a crow
pecking at recently
ploughed soil
or as the day
dissolves into night
a pine forest engulfed
in darkness
the air tinder dry
and a sense
of expectation
of a tale
about to be told
John Lyons
Optical illusion
Optical illusion
The greatest of all illusions
is the sky in all its manifestations
it simply doesn’t exist :
that space where it rains or snows
or blows up a storm or brings us
a wide blue summer’s day
does not exist though so often
our hopes are pinned upon it
there is light and there is dark
and there is the air and beneath it
the earth of the imagination
the very substance of our lives
that we tread daily
while raising our godforsaken eyes
up to the heavens for some sign
even though every orientation
we could ever need is always here
within the flesh of our hearts
John Lyons
Hall Place gardens
Hall Place gardens
Here where I walk
remembering
knowing that words
are not love
but that words may sustain
the memory of love
or the presence of love
as the custodians
of our thoughts
and of our feelings
and so here in these gardens
with you I walk remembering
and at the same time
I lay down fresh memories :
here are the marigolds
of my childhood
and the weeping willows
the oaks and the sycamores
the ducks and the geese
and the swans
all descendants
of those days and the lawns
where I once picnicked
under the shade of an elm
John Lyons
Landscape with man
I met Alejandro Oliveros in March 1977 in Caracas, Venezuela. A poet of great kindness, Alejandro was an ardent adherent to the poetics of Ezra Pound, and despite the tropical climate, his mode of dress was a kind of homage to Pound. The poem below, from Espacios (1974) owes much to Pound’s imagism.
Landscape with man
In the grounds of the park
A gardener collects leaves and trash
With his broom. Tired. Weathered
Face his hands hardened.
To one side between the leaning trees
The river runs. Narrow. Bone dry.
The man advances a few steps
Observes the clouds
Against the pink summer sky.
Uneven shapes hint at
The neighbouring mountains. Crops
and fields turn yellow.
Night descends. The gardener gathers
His tools and walks off. The wind blows.
Alejandro Oliveros
(trans. John Lyons)
Cosmology
Cosmology
Summer blooms have mostly faded
but the bushes are heavy
with red and orange berries
and down by the railway track
the cuttings are filled
with canes of ripe blackberry
that most ubiquitous of humble fruits
but so sweet to taste
And so I think of the complexity
of time and the relentless speed of light
from which all life comes
and the constancy of mass and energy
and in spite of it all the simplicities
the slownesses that are somehow
built into the necessary equation
the cycles of gestation that demand
patience as though in some way
the universe wishes to put a brake
on its unstoppable expansion
creating pockets of moments
to be enjoyed in tranquility
a sensitive universe
quite clearly in love with itself
or with its children at least
John Lyons
The kiss
The kiss
It’s about what endures
and what does not
Sensations are momentary
feelings persist and grow
over time though
that is not to say that
one is of greater value
than the other
a kiss cannot last for ever
no more than a rose
but the love engendered
need never die
Dissenters or not
we are all pilgrims
survivors of the plague our bones
bound for Bunhill Fields
no Rodin to set us in stone
for all eternity
For a moment
he pulls her in
and plants a kiss
on her lips
Would he do it if each act
were not precious ?
John Lyons
Sunday evening
Sunday evening
Complacencies
dreams a little
too easy on the tongue
drinking coffee
or biting into a sweet
juicy orange
catastrophe kept at bay
by building sandbags
out of books
and the ancient sacrifice
of knowledge
the hush hush
of toxic literary gossip
Night settles
over the wide river
and all is apparently
at peace as the lights
are dimmed
here by the Tower
where blood once ruled
stone has the upper hand
the flesh finally laid to rest
John Lyons
Space and time
Space and time
You think perhaps
that these are
empty abstract words
of no substance
but how much space
do you really have
and how much time :
more or less
than the rose that grows
in the open air ?
We’re all astronomers
so why shouldn’t we
worship the source of all life
without which not a petal
not a kiss
not a single breath
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 