No emptiness
in the heavens
Symmetries of space
of time and place
Are thoughts not
from the stars ?
Are words not too
and love and all things
that engage our affections ?
Body and soul conjoined
inseparable from birth
and you among us
with your beauty
with your bounty
we are but clouds
you rise from
John Lyons
At dawn I rise
from my bed of flesh
and re-enter the world
of words
her flesh is warm
and soft and comforting
but I must disentangle
from her arms and stand
to address the day
that waits at my door
in her eyes
the clouds of sleep
drift still
beauty is timeless
though it clings
to memory
the poetry of peace
and justice melts
into the heart
of love
John Lyons
So Monday morning
I look into the closet
and there it is
hanging there
the last clean shirt
and it’s ironed
and ready to wear
but it’s the last clean shirt
and I have a whole week
ahead of me
It’s a white shirt
and for some reason
I think of Othello and Shakespeare
and wonder if he
was ever in this situation
or Walt Whitman or John Donne
or any of the other metaphysicals
for that matter —not that I would ever
compare myself to any of them
it’s just a thought
but who did wash and iron
their shirts for them ?
and so I watch the short film
by Alfred Leslie with subtitles
written by Frank O’Hara
and I discover that
the last clean shirt
is a metaphor
for ashes to ashes
and dust to dust
and please see that my grave
is kept clean
John Lyons
Oldness etched into the stone and wood
the worn steps of precedent and tradition
cloisters in which prayer has fallen silent
quadrangles with manicured grass and
flower beds filled with competing blooms :
this is the summer of our contentment
faith and hope and love are in the air
Sweet stay awhile why will you rise
Here couples float upon the streams of time
under the arches of Magdalen Bridge
The enigma of what passes of what remains
how down the centuries age not youth survives
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 