Kenneth Rexroth

Love’s warm tissue

irlandesuk poetry , ,

Distance    movement    depth    the wonder of space
First darkness, emptiness, nothingness    then
light out of nowhere     :      and out of nowhere
life, then love 
                    First flicker within cold stone,
breath that animates her soft diamond eyes.
Of paradise I cannot speak for I
have never been there, except insofar
as to have tasted love’s warm tissue on
her lips, somewhere in the world.
Beauty wastes through time
                    and even the dance of stars tires
but the simple grace of love is a be-
ing thing, a mutual indwelling that
rises above the sleeping world, that scorns
the moonlit music
                             of heaven’s soft silks

John Lyons

In all the simple daily things

irlandesuk poetry , ,

In all the simple daily things there’s an unwritten code
a coffee and a kiss       and a few words of silence
as the sun rises and you slowly adjust your serene
and angelic soul
                         to the circumstances around you
You look at me and for a moment        I’m your bauble
your creation in which you see    as in a mirror
the burnished reflection of your love
                                                  It’s 7 a.m.
and it seems as though the world’s clockwork
mechanism has yet to be restarted          How strange
just to lie there side by side looking into your
beautiful eyes with       for a moment       no notion of time
or duty or agenda or any urgent obligation      other
than to be there for each other and nothing more
knowing that there is no knowledge
                                               greater than love

John Lyons

Love song 2

irlandesuk poetry

Love song 2

As the day dips and delves into night
         let us help ourselves to each other
let us share a wet and ragged kiss
         as we lean into the gentle curve
of our bodies
         secured by the arc of our arms

Summer is but a memory
         set against the raw rough rage
of savage politics : let me run
         my restless fingers through
the tangled tussock of your world
         our ears cocked let us lie
within the deep thunderous silence
         and recall the sibilance of bees
our thirsting lips reimbursed
         with the taste of human honey
let us distance ourselves
         from the sad fictitious figments
of their inane and ignoble history
         love knows no weariness

See how the birds swarm
         and feed in the fallow fields
and when they are done rise up
          as one in a single sheet
of molten darkness to eclipse 
          the dying day’s light

From vast untravelled spaces
         come scintillations
of the floating stars
         that stir our imagination
that so light our way
         with ever renewed nativities

Each act of love invokes
         not days but moments
of sweet franchise
         so hold me deep within you
as our bodies bind
         and magnetic murmurs merge
and as our fortunes fuse
         Let us be that singularity
a waking constellation of love
         alive in an unrequited paradise
a subtlety of tooth and nail
         angelic blood and blessed bone

John Lyons