There is another Verona
in which Romeo
never knew Juliet
where no star-crossed lovers
ever met their untimely deaths
a Verona devoid
of duelling Montagues
and Capulets
and where the wooden homes
have no balconies
from which to issue
sighs of unrequited love
John Lyons
Out of an ionized
and undifferentiated soup
of matter and radiation :
poetry
and the petrified hare
diving beneath the hedgerow
the sparrow singing
on your garden fence
the fox sunning itself
on the shed roof
Romeo and Juliet
and William Shakespeare
and Tooley Street
and your hand in mine
and all things
and all feelings
and all moments
and Weinberg who wrote
of the first three minutes
and this poem in particular
out of that selfsame
articulate cosmic soup
out of the petri dish
of my heart and mind
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 