William Shakespeare

The lover the lunatic the poet

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The lover the lunatic the poet
of the imagination all compact
A place in time and a time in place
Where sparrows sang and children
played out on the streets till dusk
Where the rivers were magical
and the fields endlessly green
and oak and ash and sycamore
provided shelter and shade
Where he now asks are the
summers of yesteryear and what
became of her who was his
first love?  She with the entrancing
eyes and soft lips and a smile
to warm the coldest heart?

John Lyons

L’amant, le fou, le poète

L’amant, le fou, le poète,
de l’imagination toute compacte,
un espace dans le temps et un temps
dans l’espace, où les moineaux
chantaient et les enfants jouaient
dans la rue jusqu’au crépuscule,
où les rivières étaient magiques,
les champs d’un vert infini,
où les chênes, les frênes
et les sycomores offraient abri
et ombre. Où sont les étés d’antan
et qu’est-ce qu’il se demande
est devenue celle qui fut son
premier amour ? Elle,
au regard envoûtant, aux lèvres
douces et au sourire à réchauffer
le cœur le plus froid ?

Shakespeare’s Globe

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The_second_Globe_Theatre

A globule – 
       a small dark cloud
of gas and dust
       seen against the background
of a luminous nebula
       or more simply
a viscous drop of fat
       ball-shaped hence the globe

Falstaff’s belly shifted from Curtain Road
       in Shoreditch to Southwark
all the world within the confines
       love and jealousy and murderous
ambition alongside scholarly indecision
       tears running down their cheeks
of joy and laughter
       of pain and despair
full of the pomp and circumstance
       of life lived out on the boards
the bard with a silver tongue
       who filled that word that name
that astronomical sphere
       with drama with poetry
with all the magical dust
       of human life

John Lyons

Sonnet 30

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Sonnet 30

Tonight no stars
           no mirror to my mood—
thick cloud rolled in from the west
           and temperatures have risen
Rain or shine we make our luck
           we also live and learn

as William woefully put it
           So let’s not let remembrance
of things past drag us down
           in sobbing sessions of sweet
silent thought : Get over it
           and live for the day

John Lyons

Shakespeare

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Shakespeare

The pen and ink of it
the physicality
Shakespeare wrote
with his fingers
leant on the desk
knew the blank page
and moments of frustration

Stumbled though he had eyes
lived through the mutability
of the imagination
smudged days of passion
and at the end
perceived the vanity
of immortality
died beset
by the wilderness wish

John Lyons

The mating game

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The mating game

How many days does it take
           I mean really take
to make a year
           and how many years
add up to a life
           and what’s a life ?

words are cheap
           words words words
two pigeons on the window ledge
           cooing dating mating
it’s a black and white world
           which is why they are grey

he says—
            no why don’t we do
what we said
           we were going to do
while Miss Universe says
           but I can change my mind

meanwhile the grass is getting greener
           everywhere daffodils are sprouting
and the first bees of the season
           are out on patrol :
it must be spring
           so the syrupy sap rises
and a young man’s thoughts
           turn to love

John Lyons