Life is of the mind
but what is real
is not the same
as solidity
Is love more real
than the rose
the feeling
more acute
than the thorn ?
No ideas
but in things
though the idea
is a thing
in and of itself
just as the mind
is a location
a place of thought
and feeling
and where love
takes up
residence
John Lyons
A short walk
down the path
to the front door
where to the left
a climbing rose
has just been planted
and behind it
a new trellis
pinned to the wall
The rose will prosper
its roots will reach
deep into the earth
the mineral truth
of its beauty
will flourish
year on year
and it will be
a thing of joy
The emblematic rose
and the power
of object and images
and the speech of truth
what Wallace called
weekend wisdom
the time devoted
to words and thoughts
and how we carry words
within us
close to our hearts
weekend thoughts and words
and the sad smell of lilacs
displaced
by the rose’s aroma
and how we give
each other our word
and how its truth
lies at the very heart
of language
and how betrayal
of the word
is an arrogant dagger
fatal to desire
John Lyons
Body
air
forms
and images
born between
mountains
by a bay
in the west
looking out
across the sea
at a point where
the river enters
grew up
between gorse
and heather
the taste
of wild honey
on her lips
midnight
held no fears
but the aching
dawn was
by all accounts
unbearable
the sun that
scrutinized
her every
movement
happiness
seen as so many
blades of coarse grass
there where
the withering wind
blew in bringing
chill winter clouds
the night fires
kindled under
hopeless stars
a name
and no more
John Lyons
Words make us
they are the flesh
of our hopes
our dreams
our expectations
nothing exists
without articulation
not the sea
not the shore
not the salmon
rising in the river
nor the red rose
that blooms
in your garden
and each day
each moment
is the creation
of that moment
and the love
we make
we remake
time and time
again because
life is always
one step ahead
of history
and so I long
for your kiss
as though
I had never
been kissed
before : long
for the soft curve
of your body
within my grasp
we never tire of roses
much less of love
life is eternal
composition
love its one true
expression
words merely
the medium
John Lyons
The essential poem
one that relates
the clouds and the trees
to an earth that would
otherwise be barren
the words that enter
into the very dynamics
of what it is to exist
and to be breathingly alive
attuned to the beauties
of light that plays
on the calm sea surface
or the breeze that ruffles
the leaves of the forest
words that make sense
words that draw colours
together and moves shapes
into a moving composition
in which the subtle harmonies
outlast the darkest thunder
the lover chooses words
out of desire out of hunger
for the opulence of flesh
upon willing flesh
and a kind of fulfillment
that makes sense of the horizon
and the movement of planets
of wheat raised from the soil
that feeds the necessitous soul :
the essential poem is a song
condensed from loving energies
informed by lip and finger
a tactile clairvoyance that knows
from the softness of her breast
that life without love
is utter desolation
John Lyons
Mid-September walking down
Fitzjohn’s Avenue in Hampstead
pavements carpetted
in dry brittle leaves
autumn with a vengeance
and I think
be articulate
be vocal
be demonstrative
and beware
you may indeed find
what you are looking for
and yet lose what you have
money is a broad church
ambition too
and love is not a lifestyle
Then on to Maresfield Gardens
to the house where Sigmund Freud
lived his final years
and which he called
‘our last address on this planet’
and I wonder where he thought
he was headed
perhaps to the Western Lands
of Egyptian mythology
and how we are
to the best of our knowledge
the only conscious beings
in the universe
and for that reason its centre
although it has no centre
and with consciousness
the need to express
to understand and share
our inner thoughts
and our feelings
to represent them
in language and in every
conceivable art
to communicate through
broad verbal gestures
and I read Sharon Olds
and the outpourings
of raw emotion in her poetry
as daughter mother and partner
acutely perceptive and confessional
centred as she is on
the intimacies and obsessions
around her sexuality
and filled with vital images
that remind me that I too
have seen healing sunshine
penetrate another body
seen the light absorbed
in the hair and under the skin
and into the smile
and known that love
is not an object
nor an attitude
of the will or the mind
but an irresistible gravitational
urge or movement
towards another being
I too saw one such sit
legs crossed
by the open window
and watched
as recollections of the past
percolated through her sensibility
her hair swept back
and on her thin lips
an expression
of unfinished business
and why this world
in which so little
is ever truly owned
except perhaps
in the nakedness of love
and the conviction
that it is the only thing
that mitigates
against the final
handful of ash and dust
tossed pointlessly
from the Brooklyn Bridge
or some such height
Late swell of summer sun
with the beauty and silence
of vast autumn migrations
abandoned lives
hung in wardrobes
epic manifestations
of the providential body
and each word
each chosen action
weighed in the balance
praying for the wisdom
God help us
to know love when we see it
to respond to love when we feel it
and again
why this world
and was any of this
all the chaotic stuff of years
anything other than
really necessary
to quote Wallace Stevens
a thoroughly necessary life
and a necessary love
and longing to lie
secure and at ease
in the accuracy
of her necessary arms and to be
finally acknowledged
John Lyons
It is words that bind us
words that shape our lives
words that capture our gestures
words that guide our minds
out of the darkness
The rose for all its beauty
is inarticulate and carries
no inherent message
its wordless script
is but a summer long
its status springs entirely
from the words
of our imagination
in love or sorrow
it assumes the mantle
that our emotions assign
Without the rain
there is the sadness
of the rain that haunted
the verse of Verlaine
the sobbing sound of notes
from the violin
falling upon the silent city
a city that is perhaps no more
than a congregation of words
a text of intelligence
a single multi-tongued voice
and so it goes—words
words watery words
awash with meaning
words in which reality
is pinned to the ground
words with the aid of which
our dreams reach for the stars
John Lyons
Poetry is a way
of looking at the world
of scrutinising the world
in all its facets
the world and its shadow
its black clouds
and its bleached bones
as well as the flowers
and the trees
and their shadows
a man a woman
and a blackbird
and their shadows
a verbal cross-examination
of what is seen and felt
and thought and touched
the pursuit of truth
and beauty
momentary beauty
immortalized in the mind
of mortal flesh
So much depends
upon this unique art
a red wheelbarrow
or a Grecian urn
so much depends
on the energies harnessed
the bird a nest
the spider a web
man poetry
one crystal-cut word
in relation to another
the fraternal art
that brings daffodils
and roses
and a blackbird whistling
that throws off
the cowl of winter
and ushers in love
Beauty is dangerous
as it is troublesome
the embodiment of truth
in the memory
it defies all oppression
defies all oppressors
and refuses to take no
for an answer
John Lyons
the energy that binds
one thing with another
the energy that moves
in me and through me
and all around me
the energy that I carry forward
into new enterprises
new manifestations of myself
and my interaction
with all the other energies
that surround me
The pulse in all things
in Attic shapes
in the rose
in her lips
and in my song
When was it
Wallace asks
that the particles became
the whole man ?
Whose hand shaped the clay
into what became
the Grecian urn ?
Clay working upon clay
Whose hand hardened it
in the fire
so that it would be there
for all time ?
A breathing human passion
The energy to create
and so direct those energies
to a precise purpose
earth to earthenware
clay to Keats
poet to poetry
truth to beauty
John Lyons
To say that we live
in prehistoric times
is no joke :
what is history
if not dead time
a past buried
in a chromatic wilderness
in which nothing
may be reversed
nothing achieved ?
A burnt match floating
in a greasy pool of rainwater
a hair on a pillow case
now lost beyond extinction
a lost lover who may be held
in the memory for only so long
before the breath fades
before the shifting sands
envelop every recollection
Be minimum
with your words
economic in your actions
resolve to move forward
to emerge from the tunnel
into the hurly-burly
of the present
write a new text of the world
full of warmth and affection :
the past is a scribble
of fret and fear and fate
that cannot be absolved
Make your world personal
exercise the courage
of your convictions
and adulterate nothing
Hers was a beauty
that time could not slay
an angel of reality
on the edge of night
my Morning Star
Be minimum
I will say no more
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 