22 cents

I don’t think

poetry

comes

from pretending to forget

how to write a full

sentence

Off The Book Shelf/ Poets We Should Know

So the other day I picked this little gem off the shelf and discovered Robert Louis Stevenson – the poet. I have had this book for a while now maybe 10 – 15 years bought it some where in America for .25 cents. It has only two poems by RLS; Requiem and The Vagabond. I think they both show just how ballsy a poet he was. Today as I was putting this blog together Shelly  posted on my face Book page about Tom Crean the Irish Sailor & Antarctic explorer. The inscription on Toms grave – Home is the sailor, home from sea. You can still drink at Toms Crean’s Pub ( he opened a pub once he retired from the sea) The last time I was there they pulled a very fine pint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_%28explorer%29 

 

THE GOLDEN TREASURY

of

Songs and Lyrics

selected from the best songs and lyrical

poems in the English language

and arranged with notes by

FRANCIS T PALGRAVE

London

MACMILLAN 7 CO LTD

new York St martin’s Press

1959

 

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
“Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Vagabond

Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river –
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I don’t like clever

I don’t like clever, it has no heart.

I tend to go for the empty things, that’s where the meat is.

Neptunian by pd lyons

 

 

Neptunian

My ugliness raised in both hands
Almost expecting something from you
And if I had a gun I woulda’ made you
And hated myself forever for being so desperate

If only I could believe
Then how easy it would be
Walking away, leaving you alone
In love with my own sense of self
Free at last to wander endlessly the starry nights I have always dreamt of

Instead I let you
Tattoo blue around my mouth
Tell me that I’m privileged

 

This blog post was inspired by Patricia’s weekly link up In Other Words where you’re given a quote to use as inspiration for a poem, photograph, or wherever the quote may take you. Interested? Visit Patricia at her blog  http://patriciasplace.me/2016-3/

http://patriciasplace.me/2016/01/20/15233/

Remember no one can…

Wake Up for David, Drinking milk shakes cold and long

Arcade Fire – Wake Up

Somethin’ filled up
My heart with nothin’,
Someone told me not to cry.

Now that I’m older,
My heart’s colder,
And I can see that it’s a lie….

 

 

 

 

 

Children wake up,
Hold your mistake up,

Before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin’ rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.
I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
When the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’

You better look down below.

 

 

Songwriters: Butler, Win / Chassagne, Regine / Kingsbury, Tim / Parry, Richard R / Butler, William

Wake Up lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

 

just back from the walk poem, first draft by pd lyons

 

a painted picture

left out before the snow

the wind blows through it

an old sheet of organic plastic

caught on

torn on

hard   wire

a post of whiskers greyer than the stone which holds it

loos ends going no where on each side

cattle long ago

bones softened

no memory even earths recalls them now

hard ground

brown ground

no trail to keep you from getting lost

no place really left to get lost

incline

something shadowy even though its sunlight

fingering illuminating

another afternoon

good fortune

among the winter

 

 

canada, a poem by pd lyons

Pdlyons's Explorations

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

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W. B. Yeats, poets we like and live with – Politics by W.B.

 

 

Yeats has always been a favorite of what I call true poets. Luckily he was not beaten out of me in any school. Never had a Yeats exam. Although in university where I learned to love Shakespeare by being taught how too  read him, I was also exposed to Yeats in a more formal setting. But Yeats had come to me long before – O human child, Wandering Angus, Byzantium…. always on my fathers bookshelves or on the Clancy brother records. And at that early time in my relation ship with my now dearest partner – you know when signs, coincidence and such were so import to see if we really matched – I definitely   noticed my old friend, Yeats upon her bookshelves and took it for a good omen.

So while looking up Byzantium, I found this little gem – the last poem. Considered by some to be the last written before his death. I had never read before or if I did it faded long ago into the country not fit for old me. No matter why or how I’ll happily take it. Always wonderful to find a gem even if it might be simply  misplaced – still feels new to me.

My daughter is “doing” Sailing to Byzantium for her Leaving Cert exam.  She was happy when  I told her I’d bet her 100.00 that even they wouldn’t be able to kill it for her.

See that’s the thing about true poets, they are very subversive. not because they are radical or violent of shocking though they can be – its because they are the archetypal  human voice that always speaks to those with ears to hear and even those who don’t have such ears? It sounds kinda good to them too.  So a little gem from ol me to whoever you. Enjoy –

 

Politics

By William Butler Yeats 

‘In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.’
THOMAS MANN.

How can I, that girl standing there,

My attention fix

On Roman or on Russian

Or on Spanish politics,

Yet here’s a travelled man that knows

What he talks about,

And there’s a politician

That has both read and thought,

And maybe what they say is true

Of war and war’s alarms,

But O that I were young again

And held her in my arms.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/249168

W. B. Yeats, “Politics” from Last Poems (1938-1939). Copyright © 1939 by W. B. Yeats.  Reprinted by permission of Scribner (Simon & Schuster, Inc.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_%28poem%29

“Politics” is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats written on May 24, 1938. It was composed during the time of the Spanish Civil War as well as during the pre-war period of Adolf Hitler‘s Third Reich in Germany. The poem hints at the political situations of Rome (or Italy), Russia, and Spain, but ultimately discusses topics more relevant to private human interaction rather than public, or political situations

 

Tramuda Blues, from My Badlands, work in progress by pd lyons

 

Tramuda Blues

A drink
Bombay on the rocks

A smile
Money for the jukebox

If I deserved love
I’d see you more often
But you’re slippery and sharp
Too much alive for this ol’ timer

If not for the ghost of your eyes
I’d call you a dream