The Night Mares, by pd lyons

 

 

THE NIGHT MARES

Restless

In a still night

No moon softening

Sharp stars

No cloud drapery.

Against this midnight

The night mares move

Sharing colour with the darkness.

What cannot find them is found by them,

There are no ways secret:

Spiraling stars leave every sky familiar,

Foraging herds by trails of green weeds

Breach every underwater sanctuary.

The night mares

Sleep standing up;

Contain any stallion,

Give birth in the middle of any weather,

Can knock bones, eyes, or internal organs out of any creature.

Simply by their passing

Men have been sucked breathless.

The night mares

Know where dragons come from,

And who, mothered by seas and singing desert sands,

The twin birthed are.

In languages that the thunder knows,

They answer one another.

Navigating easily unbridled,

No boundary deludes them.

Yielding, the only response they know.

 

 

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this first appeared in print in Searches For Magic by pd lyons, published by Lapwing, Belfast 2001. ISBN 1 898472 59 9

http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/

Lapwing Publications is a publisher based in Belfast specialising in poetry. It was founded in 1988 by Dennis and Rene Greig. Since then it has published over a hundred and fifty poetry collections.

Riding With An Angel In The Pale Moonlight, by pd lyons from Old Songs

Riding With An Angel In The Pale Moonlight

so light little queenie
I know you know the way
soon now little darling
dawn will light our way
soon now little darling
home will be in sight

I know it’s been a long time
I know you worked your heart
soon now little queenie
we’ll ride out from this dark
soon now little queenie
we’ll see the morning light

I can’t ever tell you
I don’t know any words you’d now
but you’re my own true heart girl
you’re my own true one
in darkness I trust you
in darkness no fear
I know you know the way dear
I know you always find the light

~

 

( For Jeanie

All those nights
sat silent
Smoky wine coloured
full tide
my veins
my heart
my own )

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back in the dream time i was working with horses. Jeanie was the first horse that was truly mine. she was a beautiful liver chestnut Morgan mare with a tendency towards madness. Eventualy she put me in hospital with a punctured lung via cracked ribs and fractured collar-bone – but that’s another story. One evening we did get a bit lost in the thick of a Berkshire woodland. Eventually i just gave her, her head and she brought us out of it. In dreams the horse represents the dreamers heart. She was my wild reckless self-destructive wonderful heart. this would have been written early 1990’s

 

 

Outlaw Days, by pd lyons

 

Outlaw Days

Rode through forests so dark
Could only let the horse pick the way.

Called down the moon,
Lain in silver arms,
Goddess whispering across every inch of skin my name:

“Remember what you know.
Remember you are power.
Know that I have missed you.”

st. john

The Girl, by pd lyons (for New Haven)

 

The Girl

Call her flower by moonlight
Cypress by spring
Watch from the evening
Change to grey misty morning
Leaving the Stars Behind
Across the spider down day

 

The girl
Walks on her toes
Sneakers let the ballet
Peer out with wonder

Amid this morning garden
Slipping into shade
Who whispers river lily secrets
When your musings get too heavy?

 

 

( For New Haven )

 

 

Micki Corbo Hair-do, by pd lyons

 

Micki Corbo Hair-do

you think you know where you want to go
unable to know where you are
small spaces hold a universe of ache
leaving is all I’ve ever known
all I am ever able to truly do
every place a small town needing to be left

when you are walking down streets
and I no longer do so
does it mean you are any more than I
does it mean that you’re leaving and mine
some how differ

we can not fit any more into space than the universe
and that too leaves its own ache down it s own street
all there is, no guide for us
or any one else for that matter

like some Micky Corbo hair do
angel wings
tribal dowries
cool tree in yellow
back from the end of the year
crows like days between the worlds
all lemoning and impossible to capture

 

 

 

the tree the wind lives in by pd lyons

the tree the wind lives in

 

the tree the wind lives in drowses a whisper

something on the road rain windows our promise

like rides to every hitch-hiker never kept

 

smoky headlights  hide and seek 

some kind of lace hung by my visiting mother

as if ever earned a simple gratitude

 

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when i was 18 i moved into my first apartment. one day my mother came over. she hung lace curtains in the windows.

On My Mother’s Side, poetry by pd lyons

riverside waterbury ct

 

On My Mother’s Side

My mother never told me
The one thing I’d ‘a listened to most.
Diagnosed with cancer (7 years before it killed her.)
Deciding to keep it to herself,
She did exactly what it wanted –
Believing it was for her children’s benefit, how would she refuse?

Besides my mother came from a family of secrets
Dark Sicilian secrets emanated from
Every Sunday dinner table that ever was
Ebb   Flow   Echo   Repeat
Dance through generations none of us immune

~ free from all the ancient stories we
could have held the woman who gave us birth
cried any tears together
faced fear until it became compassion
looked into her eyes knowing it was goodbye
and that there would never be another word between us ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“On My Mother’s Side” by PD Lyons read by Author
From “Caribu and Sister Stones” published by Belfast Lapwing 2009
ISBN 978-1-905425-90-7

Chocolate Pomegranate Cupcakes

yes

foodlikecake

These are probably the most elegant cupcakes I’ve ever made.  Smooth and silky pomegranate frosting tops fluffy chocolate-pomegranate cupcakes. Yum. Even if this combination sounds weird at first, you can definitely be assured that these cupcakes are delicious.

Ingredients: Pomegranate Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 12)

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup whole milk

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup pomegranate juice (I used POM)

Cooked Pomegranate Frosting (adapted from here)

1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup pomegranate juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature and chopped into 24 pieces

1 tablespoon pomegranate juice

*optional purple food coloring

Recipe:…

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once the sky was big enough, by pd lyons

Once The Sky Was Big Enough

almost the colour of smoke among clouds
young rains ancient wind dances of electricity
unlike them we never touch the ground again

cradled by blue gravity bodies arched into transparency

how many eyes
how many tongues
how many hearts and dreams
how many places where screams refuse to go

we have all touched the world with little fingers

some suffer wounds incurable
some meet death not even worried enough to be surprised
who ever thought we’d live long enough to be alone
here in rooms where nothing moves and open only into other rooms
rooms where no one ever should have been, yet could not be refused

surprised through unwashed windows everything below almost familiar

I knew people going to live forever change the world
names I can not always now recall ways I can not find
places no longer there unrecognizable even in daylight

 

If you live long enough no one will know what you’re talking about.

 

 

The Watcher, by pd lyons

Beryl Markham by unknown

 

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The Watcher

~

bright morning

sun magnified by ice and snow

stood at the sink

about to fill the coffee pot

look through the window

there through an even brighter space

where the curtains do not meet

in the distance something

a movement

almost tallest pine

deep against a pure dimensional sky

“What a beautiful bird”

after a brief pause said again out loud

“Because I know it is a bird and to me all birds are beautiful”

as if that part of himself was ever satisfied with any answer,

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From the amazing Canadian maritime winter days – when even coffee making was an adventure. written around 2003-04 from the self published Not Quite Thomas – new poems by p d lyons, lulu.com 2008. the photos are of Beryl Markham, the photographer is unknown by me. She is one of my heroes.  If interested you can goggle her and find out why she is and why she is part of this blog post.

 

beryl markham, by unknown