Louis Zukofsky

Enough for today

irlandesuk poetry

Enough for today

There are moments when it seems
         that every second counts
that every breath is precious
         and that nothing should ever
be taken for granted
         but those moments never last
we lose concentration
         and our minds relax

Wise stars can be foolish
         and he who understands
knows that nothing
         is ever finished
nothing is ever complete
         that the struggle
between heart and mind
         between body and soul
is in a rather loose way
         eternal and pointless

There is virtue
         and there is desire
the lilies in the field
         and the sparrows
that have been tallied
         well before our birth

To talk of the stars
         and the wide heavens
is no abstraction :
         uncountable
though they are
         they are very much more
than neighbours
         and light and energy
are our common
         denominators

There is no beauty without light
         no rose without photosynthesis
and goodness lies in the transformation
         of light into beauty — and it is
our most natural process
         And so we walk in the light
and stumble and fall in the darkness
         and poetry is nothing more nothing less
than the enlightenment
         of words

John Lyons

In the realm of senses

irlandesuk poetry

In the realm of senses

Can poetry heal a body
         broken on the wheel of time
can words redeem
         what the senses have lost ?
All my life I have been
         in two minds or more
the number is an irrelevance
         my imagination crowded out
by the glow of winter stars
         What I have thirsted for
I have yet to find
         but I have been driven
to know the nature of things
         of love principally
and beauty and truth
         perhaps all part and parcel
of the fabric and burden 
         of the world

Poetry the voice
         of acquired intuitions
fed by the fret and fury
         and tender frailties
of human commerce
         Do not say
that reason is maimed
         that the tongue raves
or that the mind stumbles
         into darkness
nor that there is no wit
         in love :
it is the body
         that makes sense of the mind
that makes sense of the body
         and from that marriage
all dreams are born
         and lived out in substance
so that the frost that clings
         to every blade of grass
clings as much to the mind
         that shivers with the cold
so that when love too turns away
         and a light is extinguished
the gentle warmth of a cheek
         is lost forever

John Lyons

Coda

irlandesuk poetry

Coda

My eyes trapped in time
         but not my heart
which can rove to and fro        
         back and forth
catch my second breath
         and as the evening
closes in so the mind is released 
          from its shackles
and lives for a moment
         untrammelled

How many days
         add up to a life
and what is there to tell
         in the telling ?
I have sat
         by so many windows
entered and left
         by so many doors
shed so much in the process
         been ruled by a restlessness
a desire to accumulate
         petty wisdoms
knowing all the while
         that we are but reflections
of momentary flames
         overrun in the end by time

To be
         better than not to be
Louis wrote — one fine day
          woven into the next
and to retain a certain texture
         a blend of novelty
and the recurrence of pleasures
         that mitigate the pain

This evening a red sunset
         bitterly cold but a promise
of better days ahead
         make what you can of it
that’s all you have : we are actual
         and nothing else

John Lyons

A noise in the clouds

irlandesuk poetry ,

A noise in the clouds (revised)

We are not born of a nothing
         but from substantial energies
At night we chase the stars
         in our fleeting dreams
but these scattered constellations
         are far from being figments
of banal fantasy — we too are
         fragments from the Big Bang
there is only one origin after all
         and nothing is lost
in this closed universe
         neither wisdom nor nonsense

On this cold wintry morning
         I see the play of soft light
on the panels of the wooden fence
         at the end of the garden
I see leaves gently ruffled
         by a winnowing wind
and I know that all things
         bear the same imprint
the rocks and stones and trees
         the daffodils in the meadows
that rise up from the banks of the lake
         every aspect perfectly mirrored
just as each star illuminates its neighbour
         we in our so separate souls
share this common bond
        all being extraterrestrials
and this earth a mere landing craft
         upon which our atoms
have gathered into clusters
         that are an ardent expression
of the energies within :
         we are the light in our eyes
the living word on our own lips
         we are the sense of it all
and for that reason
         love is nothing less than
the revolution of one body
         around another

John Lyons

Childhood memory

irlandesuk poetry ,

Childhood memory

Smoke from a heap of leaves burning
as darkness fell and life smouldered on
 
That night a sharp frost and the following day
awoke to a white lawn crisp under fox foot :
 
if the king is a thing so too a man and a woman
and a child and all bodies made under the sun
 
and so our lives are lived among such things
and yet all things as we know will pass
 
fame and glory and pride and wealth and position
and what remains is what we can secure

against the cold and bitter depredations of dust
the warmth stored in our hearts and in our minds
 
though those too will pass just as the smoke
rose unseen and faded into the sky and the fire died

John Lyons

when finally we go to sleep to sleep

irlandesuk poetry

when finally
we go to sleep to sleep

when finally
         we go to sleep to sleep
we will know
         that we have grown old
we will shudder
         as the snow
melts from branches
         and bury ourselves
beneath warm blankets
         to bide our time

when finally
         we go to sleep to sleep
we will know
         that some dreams
can be spent
         once and for all
and may never return
         we will remember then
the days and nights
         when nakedness
signified a constellation
         of delights
and a consummation
         of every caprice

when finally
         we go to sleep to sleep
we will regret nothing
         not a sparrow not a starling
not a rose nor the icy scent
         of lavender
on fresh laundered sheets
         having had the thrill
of our fill
         our fill
of the thrill

when finally
         we go to sleep to sleep
we will be content
         that we gave love our all
that we covered every base
         that not a single rosebud
was left unculled
         not a single bale
remained unmade
         and not a single kiss
went astray

John Lyons

Blessings

irlandesuk poetry , ,
song sparrow
The song sparrow

Blessings

Rainy day
          In the silence
         yellow warblers
and wild canaries
                  Bushes in bloom
                  honeysuckle
                  dogwood
                  Japanese quince

A lawn full of dandelions
Two rows of lettuce
         sown today
I get song sparrows
         wrens
                  cardinals
northern yellow-throats

From the kitchen
casement window
         I see fireflies at night
The shade of the Sugar Maple
                  is a blessing
                  one of many

John Lyons

The above poem draws data from two letters written by Lorine Niedecker to Louis Zukofsky.

 

 

Lorine Niedecker

irlandesuk poetry , , ,
niedecker2
Lorine Niedecker

Lorine Niedecker was born in 1903 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and lived in this wilderness area for most of her life. Her isolation from other writers and the beauty of her natural surroundings had a profound impact on her work. Niedecker chose to write in seclusion, and many of her closest relatives and neighbors were unaware that she was a poet. She had a brief relationship with the poet Louis Zukofsky in New York, but apart from that she continued to live in relative obscurity. In later years she was befriended by the British poet, Basil Bunting, the author of Briggflats, and one-time disciple of Ezra Pound; but for much of her life she lived in poverty, earning her living as a cleaning lady in a Fort Atkinson hospital. Since her death on 31 December 1970, her reputation as one of the most significant American poets of the 20th century has grown enormously. At the core of her writing are terse observations of her rural environment: the birds, trees, water and marshland that surrounded her.

For a selection of Lorine Niedecker’s poems see http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lorine-niedecker#about

 

John Lyons