This morning at sunrise
the birdsong louder than ever
the air is heavy and humid
promising thunder
before yielding
to a clear blue sky
No time for words
the peace
the silence
and the chatter of birds
says it all
the irrepressible thrust
of self-perpetuating nature
: words can be overrated
John Lyons
Now is a time for apricot
for cherry for peach and for plum
there’s not a cloud in the sky
and fields are filled with buttercups
and daisies and dandelions
by which we may tell the time
Now is the time for warm blood
and for soft hearts
for days spent
by the ancestral ocean
a refreshing breeze blowing in
across the gentle billows
now is the time for you
to lay your head down next to mine
to close your eyes
and to dream of paradise
John Lyons
Only an apothecary poet
would write to a friend
and commend him
to the care of heaven
He who teetered on tiptoe
to gaze upon things from on high
who stood three years from
the abyss of death and yet wrote
of the nightingale’s unending song
to record the truth of its beauty
In the silence of the dark night
who would dare to compare
the brilliance or the stature
of the brightest of eternal stars ?
John Lyons
It’s no coincidence that
the rose grows in silence
that it has no notion
of the beauty it achieves
through the synthesis
of starlight that raises it
up from the earth
nor that the days
of its blooms are numbered
nor that the enlightened poet
should become its voice
and tell of its beauty
to all who will take heed:
our ingenuity stems
from the stars themselves
that taught us to sing
John Lyons
How to separate the rose
from the star
their intricate simplicities
intimately bound
the enigmas that lie
couched within the petals
plans for an entire universe
and the poet drawing together
vast constellations of words
so that each thing may have a voice
so that every thread of creation
may be heard and all things
touched by love
and the memory of touch
every gesture logged
in the convoluted mind
And yesterday as I left St Thomas’s
in a dark hall off the main corridor
an intern played the grand piano
the tentative chords
of Over the Rainbow
sonorous in the gloom
and out on the street
by Westminster Bridge
the silent rain fell
among the roses
John Lyons
You do remember
where the warmth
of your soul
comes from
don’t you ?
and all the tulips
and the roses
and the daffodils
and the honey
that you spread
on your toast
and the squawking gulls
high above the quiet street
and the butterflies
in your stomach
when we are about
to make love
you do remember
the dry wind
and the specks of dust
that float in the air
that enter your eye
and that you flush
with tears
you do remember
that art and life
and death are all one
and that time requires
its own space in order
to develop
and that every breath
you take is a bonus
you do remember
don’t you ?
John Lyons
In fact it’s never about the roses
nor about the lush red petals
nor the coarse green leaves
nor the stems armed with savage thorns
it’s all about us and our gestures
our thoughts and emotions
the everlasting love we wish to signal
more about the giving
than the receiving and about
the feelings we hope will survive
beyond the dust of these blooms
that are doomed to die
John Lyons
a surge of gentleness
carries me through the day
the memory of lips
of hours uncoiled together
a voiceless world
of cultivated pearls
and the mystery
of what lies under lace
of hand upon hand
and the joy that endures
a moon drowned
in her eyes
John Lyons
Woken in the early hours
by the sound of rain
on the windowpane
my mind not quite alert
wanders from thought
to thought : the variations
in atmospheric pressure
the highs and the lows
the dance of time
on the sheer glass
the push and pull
of passion and the lust
that leads love into immortality
a tongue not known
for its discretion
the strain against
the moon-driven tide
images of the world
sifted through secular light
and all the subtle
architectures of love
at my disposal
one sky at a time
my thankfulness
for her naked
tenderness
John Lyons
« ô rage ! ô désespoir ! ô vieillesse ennemie ! »
The power of the line
in all art
whether music
or painting
or sculpture
or poetry
the line that slows
as it thickens and ages
or
speeds
as it
thins
the line is how things
shape up in time
and some lines
are invisible
to the naked eye
or beyond the imagination
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 