Dublin Girl, by pd lyons

 

Dublin Girl

in a doorway
pale hands search
the rain for softness

who has never touched the world
with little fingers,
who has never longed to never leave,

she is always there somewhere

The sea
The gulls
The Liffey
Joyce
And the ship in the window on Berkeley road
Still
Claim
Her

.

there is a Dublin of which i am in love with. it is a culmination of miles of wanderings and the songs and poetry my father brought to my life. Even before I ever got there it had taken root in my heart.  – She is always there somewhere.

 

 

ghost of the nun who kissed me by pd lyons

new haven ct artist not remembered by photographer pdlyons

down the hallway

all asleep

whispering

into the library

out over the city

windowed clear stars

on a moonless night

me

too

unwilling

to let go

 

Bella-rose & Shirley by pd Lyons now on Amazon. sample pages. References to war violence, strong language, assault

BELLA-ROSE & SHIRLEY: a love story Paperback – 28 Jun. 2023

by PD Lyons (Author)

Kindle Edition LOVE, JUSTICE, SALVATION, FUTURE, CAN THESE BE FOUND AMIDST THE SAVAGERY OF MORDERN CIVIL WAR

 

English Publication date 28 Jun. 2023

 

 

15.24 x 0.2 x 22.86 cm

ISBN-13979-8397062190

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BELLA-ROSE-SHIRLEY-story-PD-Lyons/dp/B0C9SGWTWN/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

newest from PD Pd Lyons contains descriptions of war violence. a hy-bred prose novel

It Was Tilkon from the Lady Camp
It was Tilkon and the others from the lady camp. They were still alive. Moving milling around me. Our women. Our people. The ground gives way. Their voices drift farther and farther away. Feel them support me. Feel them remove my weapons, my gear. Let myself be carried. they were alive. They were our women. My women. Alive. They bring me to one of the tents. into one of the beds. and there are sheets. sun dried stiff sheets. so white I must close my eyes. So, clean I must turn my face into their scent and weep no more.

Split Seconds
I see the horrible red rose bloom upon her chest. heard the splatter the rifle crack. our eyes meet. she whispers Bella, managing to grab my arm pulls me down. Split second before the next a harmless ricochet. I scramble. Shelter among the rubble. she had taught me well. no point in trying to spot the shooter. only thing now – survive. Hands, knees, flat on my belly, safety among the ruins. Once again, I am alone. Once again, I have lost. She who had taught me well. She who had armed me well. She who one last time from her blood-stained mouth named me. As once she would whisper with each kiss. So, she whispered with her death. That name she gave me, Bella. And once more gave me life.

So, I Became the Lady of the Rose.
From then on, I duplicated that red rose wound. Put between the legs of every man deserved it. When possible, the death wound. If not, then I would make the dead bloom. No one would know the difference; the message would read the same. Eventually people would talk of it, give me the name. Another one I never spoke. Never meant to give myself. Either way not Bella. No, not Bella ever again. Silent as that blood-filled mouth once named me so. Now renamed by strangers. Lady of the blood red rose.

Pig Whore Fucking Pig.
“Pig, whore. Fucking, whores….” Maybe if he cried, begged on his mother’s life, even just shut up, but no he stands there. arms and legs secure to the kitchen post. Pants down around his ankles while the woman he had beaten senseless moans on the floor. I push. How easy it goes in. Amazing the strength left in him to twist like that. Amazing how loud a man’s screams can be. So clear. I notice small things. Stains on his shirt, a rough shape of a bird in flight? A bird born of sweat or blood? His own or his victims? How clear every small thing, His teeth have a colour, his smell… Thrashing hard against the rope I snap to. His contortions set him free! But no. Still bound. But now its whispers. Now its pleas. Now he prays to me… “Pick it up!” Shirley yells “you missed. You fucking missed!” Then seriously quiet says, “Do what I taught you. Remember. Observe, relax, act.” So, I pick up the knife. Observe its weight, the room, the light, clearly again every small thing, his shaking hairless knees, his bleeding stomach. Breathe. Relax. Slowly, steadily, search, until peaceful a soft pop sound dwindles from his never to be heard from again mouth.
Do We Have the Right?
“Do we have the right?” I ask. She sits beside me on the bed takes my hand forces it hard between my legs, She stiffens, holds firm against my resistance. Brings her face close to mine, eye to eye. Calls me softly for the first time, “Bella. Close your eyes. Trust me. Close your eyes. Now observe. Whatever your thoughts. Whatever you feel, no matter what.” I stop. we both relax. All at once something drains. And in that filthy bed, into her arms I weep. Cling like I don’t know what, to her. Finally, when I can look up, she asks again, “So do we?” “Yes,” I hush, “yes, we do.” And I let her bring her mouth to mine. Breathe in her breath as once more she names me. “Bella…” And as she draws away, I pull her back again and again. Until we both fall into a luxury of dreamless sleep.

excerpts from Salamanders by PD Lyons

Today refused

Today refused. the sink full. refused the audible complaints. crows impatient for scraps and fat as if they knew soft Cabernet rib eye steaks ten p.m. alone with sci-fi DVD’s. X-file memory lingered now angularly my pre-coffee kitchen receipt as if the same sun graced us together amazing our way through un-pathed reservoir tall red pines every inch a carpet worth laying down on. What if you were here now? What if just like I remembered you were here now. But no, not this now, this now I am afraid of, rather our now or our own now of then; smoking popping dropping snorting drinking now both hands full both high school bodies, twenty, twenty one year old bodies wild full dancing midnight at the park and swallowed whole each other’s dark. .so found our way and sandy sheltered on the shore when pale into orange wore purple phantom clouds gone into a pale yellow walk me home alone dawn. Across the other kitchen table of my mother’s somehow even I explained in some way that all she did was make me tea and told me take it with me up to bed.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Long slender

Long slender limbs  her idle eyes, words becoming fact, dozing across duvet white sunlight curtain-less and strong fingers still and holding to dreams as if tiny birds hatched still needing heat but gently now. What secrets ceilings hold. How many mysteries mere fact and how often do I stare contemplation of such fates and figures as if study would inspire Rosetta cracked and peeling tiles, egg shell spidered nicotine tinge smoke detector plain brass empty fixtures of sometimes light translations plain revealed. Now though stretch deep breath toss and turn our own movements added to mute hieroglyphs we make our way inevitably towards check out time. Our words the language of coffee pleasant in botanical porcelain. Our contact smooth occasional sweet and creamy sign, an easy jumble warm linen bedding healed from room service interrupt-us our coffee mouths roll sure certain syllables across around, up and down knowing days like this like any other made and mandated to be spent. How nice to do so thoughtless. Some rooms though, I will not surrender  keys to easily.

Monday, February 20, 2012

seeing is not being

Thank You to Tokyo Poetry Journal

Very happy to have three of my own included in Tokyo Poetry Journal Vol. 14  Eros.

https://www.topojo.com/product-page/volume-14-eros 

White

Tea shirt like a too short dress

occasional exposures of hair

as I walk across the room

stop

You kneel

inhale

Breathe long against me

Put your mouth to me

I lean

Again

I lean

 again

Squeeze

Draw me in

Again

This time wide opening  with your tongue

Sister Stones

Today I brought her stones,

sister stones

white round found together on the beach

Not the waxy white,

not glassy grey,

but almost opal

Round

Alike

Together

Put into her wet

from my having sucked their salt

Marj

There was nothing in that night

which did not taste like your blood.

I licked the rusty stains from your thighs,

following down trails to that hot slick pool of fresh salt water,

nestled in the cave of all our sorrows.

I made you laugh so wild, so steam gut wild,

as if you too howled at the sunless sky.

I pumped you ‘til  white milk mingled

with  dark new moon flavours of you blood,

and you laughed and laughed and laughed.

                                                                28 May 85

Volume 14: Eros

 

Eros. ​

​

Poetry and translations by Sayaka Asaba (translated by Jordan A. Y. Smith), John Solt, PD Lyons, Illias Tsagas, Davord Griffiths, Daisuke Yakumo, Jes Kalled, Rachel Ferguson, Jacob R. Moses, Jeremy Gadd, C. E. J. Simons, Tim Kahl, Paul Rowland, Debs Max, Greg Snazz, Kevin Carter, Repatriare Perdita, Duncan Whom, Farah Ali, Alison Lubar, Noriko Mizuta (translated by Jordan A. Y. Smith), Ryan Dzelzkalns, Shozo Torii (translated by Taylor Mignon), Samuel Louis Spencer, Sarah Sands Phillips, Ulyses Razo, Alexandra Fossinger, Alex Watson, Srinjay Chakravarti, Edward Levinson, Al Ningen, Yowen Xan, Datiko, Mihiro Ogawa, Jordan A. Y. Smith, Nishalya, Herman Bartelen, Zoria Petkoska Kalajdjieva, Jonathan Pessant, Joy Waller, Michael Ely, Alicia Elkort, Andrew Gebert, Bill Howell, David Chenery, Sorcha  Chisholm, Simon Scott, Philippe Burgin, Jeffrey Johnson, Robert Moreau, Mariko Kitakubo, 

Kaori Shoji, Jake Adelstein, Elysian, Barbara Summerhawk, Nadia Arioli, Mat Chiappe, Joan Anderson, Tim Exley, Allan Lake, Taylor Mignon, Sergio A. Ortiz Rivera, Ndaba Sibanda, 

Marcellus Nealy, John Francis Cross, Tracy Sherman, Robot Bastard, Miracle Jones, 

​

Poetry by Jes Kalled, Brian Wood-Koiwa, Vincent Aimée, Sasha Drozd, Neil Craig Chapman, Debs Max, Rorbert Holbrook, Sanjay Bradford, Ilias Tsagas, May Drew, Herman Bartelen, John Meyer, Marcellus Nealy, Peter Leghorn.

​

Cover Art by Jes Kalled

from Salamanders by pd lyons

Slow

 

Slow as a screw cap wine morning dark faded into rain blocked sunrise. Chug of the coffee making scents of redemption and awareness fills my kitchen. Unlike the rest of the world. Friday is the hardest one too many days dragged wake-ups not really awake when you’ve not slept. Now among the shadows forgotten aspects of our truth. Hamlet the shadow of Summer’s dream.  The eighteen year old girl sentenced to life for murder of a nine year old girl when she was fifteen. Tried as an adult. No blood ever found on her or her clothes. No murder weapon recovered. Her sixteen year old boyfriend, interviewed six times by thy FBI, failed polygraph, none of that allowed to the jury. Fifteen year old in jail for three years before convicted, denied application to continue education, innocent until proven guilty. Eighteen year old Tibetan girl Buddhist nun under Chinese occupation. Practitioner of compassion for all beings. Sits down outside the abbey in a pool of gasoline – lights the match in protest, light upon atrocities, atrocious act among atrocious acts. She and all who immolate are terrorists, seek only to disrupt the lawful Chinese government and it’s people. This is the morning shadow of the night before. Coffee the shadow of the cheap screw cap bitchy white wine slowing me down into crow sound shapes emerged from darkness into grey dawn.

 

Saturday, February 18, 2012

rings of saturn sci fi as read by the author PD Lyons

 excerpt from the poem Rings of Saturn by pd lyons

and you know this feeling

it is the constant star

as if you’ve been home sick all your life

for a thing you’ve always known

yet never had…

but these days are good

and also familiar 

days of peace

wet earth and time passing slowly

like the time of children and animals

the time of growing things

each moment

unfolding

each moment you’re knowing

you’ve know it all along

even before there were words to describe it

 

just as you also know

constant stranger moving through these days

unable to stay for very long

a thief only able to carry little bits away

beneath the leather jacket

in a pocket next to your heart.

 

hear the whole sci fi poem as read by pd Lyons from Lost Worlds Vol 2 #11 1990~

From The Country Of Stones by PD Lyons

riverside, Waterbury Ct.

From The Country Of Stones

me and the small talk angel

find no way to mark the years

not much at all worth mentioning

on corners of dull marble

we lean

without surprise

without concern

without big questions

just slight curiosities

bringing us together

in a penny tossing

park bench

kind of way

from the book Caribu & Sister Stones Poetry by pd Lyons published by Lapwing, Belfast.

https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/p-d-lyons

https://books.google.ie/books/about/Caribu_Sister_Stones.html?id=m4v3dIprgUIC&redir_esc=y

riverside, Waterbury Ct.

The Old One Sitting On A Bench by pd lyons

 

I am the old one sitting on a bench

I’m tired

the dog restless, bored

I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years

 

they say the earth is a planet

spun in space

part of a solar system

part of a galaxy

part of a universe

 

they say people who study such thigs are weird

but how could it be otherwise?

to constantly contemplate the tininess of our lives

amidst such vastness

 

I am the old one sitting on a bench

the dog, restless wanting to go

I am wishing he was smaller

so that he couldn’t pull on my arm so hard

feb. 2012 fron salamanders by pd lyons

Today

 

Today on the great yellow sheet of possibility he hurried the blue notes of coffee too hot to drink comfortably. It was the gold dead grass of February, not dead, sleeping, not sure of the difference. Empty unsure sky whether snow or rain no birds at the apple tree feeders wishing to find out. Where ever it is they go; the birds are always out. Can you imagine a place where no one knows how they should behave, where the fear factor absent no motivation, no explanation, what would we be like? Compassionate birds always out never needing to steal. The cheapest coffee comes in a real steel container, has more weight than most and tastes as good as the rest. Now are there things un-wishing to do but wishing were done. The energy of that un-equated equation can be used to do which must be done. What is the term for an equation that is unequal? An un-equal equation is an error. Do all errors need remedy? Do they need to be remedied? And hot from the hoody sweat shirt and seventy degree thermostat he pulls it up over his head remembers five years old and getting stuck.