Temper and belief
as if to say –
the mutability
of mass and energy
the purpose of human shadows
the arc of time marked
by the rise and fall of poppies
the summer rites of butterflies
the miniscule expansion
of my personal universe
rubbing shoulders
with all the necessary angels
life the colour of sky and sea
the full weight of these particles
that press around me
Green will soon turn to gold
dense clouds will gather
in chromatic clusters
in some past life
I will chance upon love
and savour those moments
that will always be
that will never return
John Lyons
poetry
Shakespeare’s Globe
A globule –
a small dark cloud
of gas and dust
seen against the background
of a luminous nebula
or more simply
a viscous drop of fat
ball-shaped hence the globe
Falstaff’s belly shifted from Curtain Road
in Shoreditch to Southwark
all the world within the confines
love and jealousy and murderous
ambition alongside scholarly indecision
tears running down their cheeks
of joy and laughter
of pain and despair
full of the pomp and circumstance
of life lived out on the boards
the bard with a silver tongue
who filled that word that name
that astronomical sphere
with drama with poetry
with all the magical dust
of human life
John Lyons
I will go to the ocean
I will go to the ocean
feel the breath of it on my face
and breathe in unison with it
and the sun will rise
with all its fierce energy
and will scorch the sand
which I call sea-dust
and I will tread gingerly on it
so that my feet scarcely suffer
and I’ll admire the frigate birds
that ply the waves just off-shore
how patiently they fish for shadows
and at night I’ll count the stars
that have tracked me
and all I ever loved since birth
John Lyons
Deadly nightshade
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
Seen on the radio
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
The conversing mind
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 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
The beauty of life
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
The measure of life
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
How angels descend
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
johnjosephlyons 