Hitchcock Lake by pd lyons

Hitchcock Lake in Wolcott Connecticut. rented a small house on the lake back in the day. there were lots of ducks on the lake. it was a yellow house and my son learned to walk there and i cut wood across the street to heat the place in the winter.

 

Hitchcock Lake

I am tired of travelling.
Charlotte
looks for duck eggs
in the lake
and finds them.
I am tired and drinking black bitter coffee at the kitchen table.
Charlotte
water cold
ankles blue
picks up
sticks & stones
& chips of glass
collage.
Basket patterns my eyes haze.
House plants strain for sunlight.
Days been another all day grey.
Just put out another cigarette.
Charlotte
rolls up her pants
crazy woman
before trees bud.

published by angelic dynamo 2008

canada, a poem by pd lyons

 

 

was living in cape Breton for a few winters. had a dalmatian dog named max. we brought him over from Ireland with us. he had 125 acres of woodland for a back yard and the Atlantic ocean for the front. those days had a canon AE something or other so film photos and they’re in a box somewhere…

originally published by corner club press issue 3 vol 1 July 2011   http://thecornerclubpress.weebly.com/

 

 

Canada

Where I could step out into the night
Smoke with the stars
Hear an ocean just beyond the pines
And something’d draw the
Dog off barking
Into a pitch black forest where really anything could be
When all I wanted was a sparkling solitude of Orion
But you know when the s.o.b. came back
All proud of himself waging his tail –
All I could say was
Good boy – Good boy

 

 

Calling It Love, a poem by pd lyons

back in 1985 i spent a month in Hamburg. it was January and it was one of the coldest ever. this is a poem from then

Calling It Love

Black Sea, palm tree dreams,

recorded Springsteen’s Badlands,

philosophic gift to a lover

borrowed from your room mate,

when you lived on a street named for lanterns.

Wrapped in your long black coat,

cross the city underground,

through heavy draped doorways,

nuzzle into smoke, and hot grog.

timeless sailors, reluctant to approach,

as if they knew something steel hidden in your pocket.

The last time you were here –

making cigarettes for a lover

borrowed from your room mate.

conversation a blur. Cinema forgotten,

unburdened in a room above the kiosk.

all sense of betrayal excused by adventure…

Next morning, walking home

dry steel footsteps echo,

as even you found yourself

believing in what you knew was not

and calling it love.

for cordula

Community College 1975 – poem by pd lyons

Yale art gallery

Community College 1975

the first day we were classmates

showed us pictures

himself in training

himself in uniform

himself with his buddies

himself with his dead gook

next day

no one sat near him

next day

didn’t show

never came back

Yale art gallery

florida by pd lyons

 

 

the wife is planning to go to Florida

six days paid for by the company
never been myself
hear the bugs are as big as a man’s fist
land is flat colour primarily brown
the water tastes and stinks like rotten eggs.

its a place where people who couldn’t make it here, go
to live, to retire, to skip out on court cases

and those few who came back? only seem to
drink more, die slower, than if they hadn’t.

 a place of no return.
the broken, the old,
the TV show violence.

but maybe the kid would like it?
maybe we’d be near a quiet beach,
manatees and gators ?
Spanish? No. Aztec, gold
washed up by some last weeks storm.
and what would we do with that blood money?
unable to throw it back
splash dance sing
all Jackie sparrow pirate.

joel /Feb. 19. 1986. NYC – by pd lyons (still rough after all this time)

JOEL / feb. 19.86. NYC

what is there to say?
now  I’ll never see your face
among a subway crowd
or look up from the Sunday Times
as I walk into the Borgia.
what is there to say?
now that your smile,
your ways, all the things that made you, you
are gone?
I remember you.
how I  loved you.
and hated you.
you broke my heart.
sometimes you weren’t even my friend.
but I was there for you. brought flowers
  smuggled in your favourite
foods . you hardly ever ate but sometimes seemed  grateful for none the less.
 you’d  speak to me then ,
fears , regrets, hate for what you called “that terrorist of love”.
finally letting me in.
and now, today?
 I try to bargain,
saying  “but I was there ” over and over
as if some magic incantation
but somehow all that happens is I cry.

 

The Oscar Peterson In My Kitchen by pd lyons. from The Women Retrospective

The Oscar Peterson In My Kitchen

The Oscar Peterson in my kitchen
does not surprise me in my pyjamas
I don’t get to offer him a bowl of corn flakes
while he’s waiting for my father

No the Oscar Peterson in my kitchen
has been dead for years and Dartmouth
three thousand miles west from where I sit
amazing October sun
a solitude of coffee
and when Billie chimes in
sure isn’t it just like heaven
behind my eyes this morning?

(for jenny)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before The Growing Season Of Grass by pd lyons

 

Kent Leopard , Kent Ct.Lilly

Dreams Before The Growing Season Of Grass

by pd Lyons

Not early enough
The day already begun
Anyone with any place to be
Already there or else so late not worth fretting about.
Brand new bus half empty
At least two hours to go.

No ghosts dance over the river.
No diamonds tip the foliage.
From  dark shapes emerge;
A girl you used to know
Leads a horse you used to own
Liver chestnut
White star snip
Bucks rears dares

Once your brown hands could do anything:
   Melt the mouths of untried horses,
   Finalize another divorce,
   Set fence posts well bellow the frost line.
   Pull sunglasses from a girl,
   Hold her slight surprise,
  To kiss and kiss and kiss
  As if  there would never ever be anything else to ever do again.

Espresso @ the Borgia by pd lyons from The Women a retrospective,

Espresso @ the Borgia

She used perfume
Smelled like cinnamon gum
That should be enough

If not:

Dressed in black tights
Emerald green Kamali sweater
Hair long white  recently un-braided
Red marks her mouth left on porcelain cups  

 

for shelly bravest of the brave love of my life more than ever more than always

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4hzg2oTRI4

 

My lady may I have this dance
Forgive a knight who knows no shame
My lady may I have this dance
And lady may I have your name
You danced upon a soldier’s arm
And I felt the blade of love so keen
And when you smiled you did me harm
And I was drawn to you, my Queen
Now these boots may take me where they will
Though they may never shine like his
There is no knight I would not kill
To have my lady’s hand to kiss
Yes and they did take me through the hall
To leave me not one breath from you
And they fell silent one and all
And you could see my heart was true

Then I did lead you from the hall
And we did ride upon the hill
Away beyond the city wall
And sure you are my lady still
A night in summer long ago
The stars were falling from the sky
And still, my heart, I have to know
Why do you love me, lady, why?

by mark knopfler