Brooklyn Bridge

Washington Roebling –  builder of Brooklyn Bridge

irlandesuk poésie, poetry ,

From his window
         stubble on unshaven cheeks
the crippled engineer
         looks out over the harbour
as day by day
         the towers rise up and cables
are spliced and strung
         A proposition that has come
to be an obsession
         and an act of love
the binding of two parts,
         his life transformed
into landscape
         indelible on the skyline
A place of congregation
         and disparate communion
a paradigm
         a passageway for the living
and for the dead
         they carry in their hearts,
a filter of dreams
         and despairing moments
an affirmation that feeds
         the lone eye
Birth of a view
         among the spiders
so it soars,
         arpeggios of light
rippling in the shifting
         waters below,
the structure stirs and is alive,
         an impulse of beauty
caught in the curve
         of memory

2015

John Lyons

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Washington Roebling – constructeur du Brooklyn Bridge

De sa fenêtre, barbe naissante sur joues
         non rasées, l’ingénieur infirme
contemple le port
         tandis que jour après jour,
les tours s’élèvent et que les câbles
         sont épissés et tendus,
une proposition devenue obsession,
         et un acte d’amour,
l’union de deux parties,
         sa vie transformée en paysage,
indélébile sur l’horizon,
         un lieu de rassemblement
et de communion disparate, un paradigme,
         un passage pour les vivants
et pour les morts,
         ils portent dans leurs cœurs
un filtre de rêves et de moments
         de désespoir, une affirmation
qui nourrit l’œil solitaire,
         la naissance d’une vue,
parmi les araignées, elle plane,
         des arpèges de lumière ondulant
dans les eaux changeantes en contrebas,
         la structure s’anime et prend vie,
une impulsion de beauté capturée
         dans la courbe de la mémoire

A view from the bridge

irlandesuk poetry

A view from the bridge

Hard to believe that the sea
           comes from the sun
that all things
           have a common origin
that the relationship
           between mass and energy
is unbreakable
           and that no inner
or outer space exists
           just space on all sides
stretching backwards
           and forwards
within an expanding
           infinity

We were born to cross
           the Brooklyn Bridge together
that summer’s day
           born to know and love
one another
           to recognise
our common origin
           our particles reconnecting
to live as one
           as it was in the beginning
is now and ever
           shall be

John Lyons

By Brooklyn Bridge

irlandesuk poetry ,

By Brooklyn Bridge

The diametric gaze of love
and of lovers’ unstinting eyes

so that vision becomes a bridge
Hart Crane carrying his perceptions

in his pocket : poetry is span and projection
It moves on bold heels knowing that

nothing is new under the sun and yet
no two skies are ever the same

a lighter shade of blue or grey or a paler dark
Science has its sesames    poetry too

but poetry has mutinous song that fires
on all cylinders     that breaks in waves

at the base of the towering chalk cliffs
Mountain laurels and Easters of speeding light

the span of consciousness within an earth
drained of its tears    Poetry demands an end

to the fraternal massacre    to the slaughter
of lilies and the perversity of human disdain

The sound-waves launched from her lips
buttressed across the crisp morning air

slipped through the coruscation of the outer ear
penetrated and curled around the spiral cavity

of the cochlea and cosily implanted themselves
in the depths of his mind and his heart

Poetry is pact    is the bread of angels
is love’s purest breath when it so wills to be

John Lyons