Rimbaud

What about love?

irlandesuk poésie, poetry ,

It’s a slow morning –
a jet is drawing straight lines
in the blue sky
Summer is still burning
and the river is going nowhere
School is out and there are
non-native birds here on vacation
The foxes that prowl the empty
schoolyard get thinner every day –
victims of the drought

Somewhere far away
Jane (not her real name)
is delicately asleep in her bed
I wonder if she’s dreaming of me
or if she will even think of me
when she wakes

It is not known whether Rimbaud
preferred hot chocolate
to coffee with his croissants
All these so-called critics
know next to nothing about him

Some of the leaves
on some of the trees are
slowly turning to gold
I have to remind myself
exactly how this ends :
in dust and ash and photos
found in a leather suitcase
years from now that mean
nothing to anyone    Beauty
fades along with time
But what about love?

John Lyons

Et l’amour, dans tout ça ?

La matinée s’étire en lenteur –
un avion trace des lignes droites
dans le ciel bleu
L’été brûle encore
et la rivière ne va nulle part
L’école est finie et des oiseaux
non indigènes sont là en vacances
Les renards qui rôdent dans la cour
d’école déserte maigrissent de jour en jour –
victimes de la sécheresse

Quelque part loin d’ici
Jane (ce n’est pas son vrai nom)
dort paisiblement dans son lit
Je me demande si elle rêve de moi
ou si elle pensera même à moi
à son réveil

On ignore si Rimbaud
préférait le chocolat chaud
au café pour accompagner ses croissants
Tous ces soi-disant critiques
ne savent presque rien de lui

Quelques feuilles
sur certains arbres
se parent lentement d’or
Je dois me rappeler
comment tout cela finit exactement :
en poussière, en cendres et en photos
trouvées dans une valise en cuir
bien des années plus tard, qui ne signifient
plus rien pour personne    La beauté
s’efface avec le temps
Et l’amour, dans tout ça ?

Good care of souls

irlandesuk art, poetry ,
city fragment.jpg
City fragment, John Lyons (oil on canvas)

Good care of souls

Good care of souls
           in the hands
of the poet
           in the words

Let us terminate
           our season in hell
and go forth
           in joy and charity

Let us dispel
           those mists
that keep us
           from seeing

what is
           before our eyes
In order to be one
           we must first separate

so as to conjoin
           in love’s singularity
A cloud
           has enveloped my days

but with a vengeance
           the sun will return
and with it spring
           with all its blossom

and blithe airs
           and you will shine
in all your inexhaustible
           beauty

John Lyons

Les Illuminations

irlandesuk art, poetry ,
Unfinished II
Eggshell, John Lyons (oil on canvas)

Les Illuminations

Bursts of lightning
           scattering the darkness
thick drops of rain
           beating against the pane

I stare out
           across the green horizon
: yesterday a butterfly
           today a moth
come to bury its eggs
           in her cashmere

she counts her trinkets
           under an atrocious moon
a sad child squats
           in silence

John Lyons

Rimbaud’s genius

irlandesuk poetry ,

Rimbaud’s genius

Not all things
            are seasonal
love is a body
            of hope
of belief
            in the spirit
that transcends
            time and event
and the perfect form
            is there in the breath
the redemption
            of all life

We are all
            on a meter
but the stars
            have no agenda
for us
            we make our own
berries
            out of the ash

John Lyons

Rimbaud revisitation

irlandesuk poetry ,

Rimbaud revisitation

The suburbs arrayed
       amid cold meadows
no bell sounding
       prayer long fallen silent

Here the air resounds
       to the caw of crows
whole armies of them
       that come swooping down
dressed for battle
       the black metallic sheen
of their feathers
       contemptuous of the light
their rapier beaks
       sharpened for business
no solace in their haughty bearing
       that sets them apart
from the smaller birds :
       nature too has its favourites

Along the roads
       and down by the little stream
they congregate in twos and threes
       in fours and fives
but do not dally showing disdain
       for Calvary’s winding lanes

Those who see them
       shudder at the thought
of life’s tender fragility
       the cold message
so dutifully delivered
       by these harbingers
of all things sepulchral

But o you black birds
       you cry in vain
for the winter
       that now smothers
the barren fields
       will lift soon enough
and the warbler’s voice
       once again will be heard
singing from the tops
       of mighty oaks

John Lyons

Elsewhere

irlandesuk poetry

Elsewhere

Do not mistake my body for me
I am sometimes there
and yes it’s an address of sorts
but I’m often absent
simply elsewhere
sometimes in the future
sometimes strolling through
past locations in which I accumulated
thoughts and feelings and experiences
there are hills and rivers and walled cities
and boats that cut through
the choppy waters of a beautiful lake
and there are men and women and children
and lips that I once kissed and still cherish
in an absent kind of way
so much so that when Rimbaud wrote
that his true life was elsewhere
I felt as though but for a quirk of time
he had read my mind
and stolen my thoughts

John Lyons

Rimbaud

irlandesuk poetry

Rimbaud

What emerges
         from this deep season
of confusion
         but a soul dissolved
in the light
         of misaligned stars
one who would hanker
         for a piece of forever
lost in the mind forest
         blind to the arcs
of astral fire
         only darkly alive
twisted and torn
         by the loveflesh
pitted against
         an obsolete future

Here I stoop
         to guzzle at the rain
to commit this tract
         of time to words
and tear off the hollow
         masks of the night

All that is unborn
         the leastful breathing grace
 that lived on the welfare
         of passion
No meaning where none
         intended

John Lyons