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
The smile of hours
the fresh fragrance
of ancient woodland
foxes and squirrels
about their business
as though the world
did not exist
or as though theirs
was the only world :
crows and magpies
looking down
on sparrows –
and delicate wild flowers
in the meadows
My boots damp
from the morning dew
an expectancy in the air
everything
you name it
about to happen
John Lyons
It’s so beautiful
life
the power of it
the frailty of it
the five-petalled primrose
quality of it
the balance of it
how we are always
only a breath away
from love or death
how so much and yet
so little is held
in our hands –
we have words
to breach the silence
and silence to sustain
our words and images
all that is expressed
out of us calmly and urgently
all that speaks
to the heart
and to the soul
So beautiful
life
a hand pressed
to lips or the sound
of a child’s laughter
her thin hair
caught in the wind
blowing across her face
her defiant smile
her eventual kiss
John Lyons
What sparrows know –
that everything is timed
to perfection
that once the cusp is passed
the green leaves
will start to droop
their colour will seep away
and they will gather dust
and hang yellow and lethargic
in the late summer air
What sparrows know –
that there’s a time to nest
and a time for fledglings
to find their wings
and to take flight
and that only love
across all seasons
has the measure of life
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
Again I ask
how many dawns ?
I wake to rain
pelting the roof tiles
to a dawn chorus
sung slightly off-key
to a damp world
and the muffled sound
of trains rattling
through the distance
We all have places to go
and places to stay
and bridges to cross
before we put the past
behind us and seek
to atone
for all the errors
all the mistakes
Only in the immaculate darkness
do the stars shine
and last night before I slept
I counted them and felt
at peace with their pulse
running through me :
imperfect though we are
they are there to guide us
to fill us with a necessary
sense of purpose – namely
to make love and in so doing
to shine
John Lyons
What looks the same
is never the same
the rose the butterfly
the tall poppies
swaying in the breeze
the sparrow alighting
for a moment
on the garden fence
All things are in flux
from the subatomic
universe to the stars
motion and emotion
what moves us literally
and in the heart
what’s set in stone
moves in time
Love struggles
against the tide
but love too in time
will fade will wither
under the weight of years
surviving solely
in the hope
to be reborn
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 brown trout moves
through shallow waters
drags its shadow
across the fine gravel
Doused in sunlight
its plump dappled body
thrusts as a single muscle
mouth wide and gills flared
In the stillness
in the silence
the young mayfly
stands no chance
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 