Notice All the Silence That You’ve Left Behind, by pd lyons

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Notice All the Silence That You’ve Left Behind

No matter how hard I wait
the rain doesn’t stop any sooner
no matter if I focus on streaming glass
or distant green as it meets the still bare tree line
no not even if I stare at the little pile of shit the neighbour’s dog left slowly steadily dissolving in the gravel

Couldn’t I just stand here all day?
Instead, get dressed
yoga later or not at all

There is a softness allowed by the absence of anxiety
a nonchalant free from worry over what to do
when after all there’s nothing –
Things will remind me, no matter what I choose

and tears a lot like rain seem never to stop
until they do and then they don’t again

~~~~~~~~~~

I go out, with the basket for wood
feed the fire started in the dark morning hours
ash and blackthorn…

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“Market Prayer” and other poems by Annemarie Ní Churreáin

I am afraid
the life I dream exists.

Poethead by Chris Murray

Laundry   Here in the Indian foothills, I share a house with a man from Greece   who speaks no English perfectly, disappears for days on a motorbike,   leaves his laundry on the low make-shift line, grieving an absent sun.   Side by side they hang: his shirt, my summer dress as if they know each other well   and when he returns, smelling of engine oil, monsoon, rolled brown cigarettes,   we have no formal language, to share our separate joy.   Drip-drip on the balcony, a queer, white pool gathers below.   He holds at a sleeve, looks to sky. I open my palm for signs of rain.   Market Prayer   It is the scent of hanging fruit more than roots pulled from lines of parallel dirt that lingers after all that has happened. I touch a pyramid of lemons and everything is new again. I…

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The Un-“Selfish Poet” site review by Emily Jaeger on Woven Tale Press + NO FEE Submission call

Trish Hopkinson

I’m so honored to have Emily Jaeger, Features Editor of Woven Tale Press publish this lovely site review of my blog today. She does a great job explaining what I’m up to and the types of information you can find here on my site.

“The site is blessedly easy to navigate, between the search bar, drop-down menus, and a side-bar of post categories including such topics as: “Poetry/Writing Prompts,” “Guest Blog Posts,” “Poetry Contests,” and “Calls for Submissions.” Hopkinson also has a “Blog Tour” page, which includes brief summaries of each section of the site. If, after combing through all of these search options, a reader still hasn’t found what they are looking for, Hopkinson offers the “Ask Me Anything (About Poetry)” feature, where readers can submit questions to Hopkinson for a direct response.”

Click here to read the complete review article.

The Woven Tale Press is an online…

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Morgaine Speaks the great secret, from Mists of Avalon by M.Z. Bradley

For this is the great secret, which was known to all educated men in our day : that by what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.

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

Marion Zimmer Bradley stated about her book:

About the time I began work on the Morgan le Fay story that later became Mists, a religious search of many years culminated in my accepting ordination in one of the Gnostic Catholic churches as a priest. Since the appearance of the novel, many women have consulted me about this, feeling that the awareness of the Goddess has expanded their own religious consciousness, and ask me if it can be reconciled with Christianity. I do feel very strongly, not only that it can, but that it must… So when women today insist on speaking of Goddess rather than God, they are simply rejecting the old man with the white beard, who commanded the Hebrews to commit genocide on the Philistines and required his worshippers daily to thank God that He had not made them women… And, I suppose, a little, the purpose of the book was to express my dismay at the way in which religion lets itself become the slave of politics and the state. (Malory‘s problem … that God may not be on the side of the right, but that organized religion always professes itself to be on the side of the bigger guns.) … I think the neo-pagan movement offers a very viable alternative for people, especially for women, who have been turned off by the abuses of Judeo-Christian organized religions.

 

Shirley: Back Story As Told To Bella, part one by pd lyons

 

 

 

10 days maybe a few weeks   after my capture? housed with the other prisoners from various units. not many of us 12? 15?  my luck had held. our captors did not know I was not the young boy they thought me.

it was not pleasant but nothing torturous. we were fed crap food, slept on hard earth floor, not many blankets n such. we might have been shoved on occasion, but mostly they mocked us, jeered us in broken language

So now observers have you enjoyed your trip?

Did you see what you wanted?

Don’t worry we still have sights for you don’t we …

and they would laugh.

eventually the tempo seemed to increase, the shoves turned to occasional slaps or spitting or tripping or a kick. I was lucky enough to be nimble but was more uncomfortable with the rough seduction attention paid to me –

beautiful boy, fine young fellow,

remarks about the smoothness of my skin –

that made me feel ill.

one morning earlier than usual, the sun rise hardly bringing colour to the sky, we were roughly called to attention.

Marched out one by one single file

For a moment I thought, this is it. But out in the yards well covered by the weapons of our guards we were each handed a dirt shovel herded up onto the flat bed of a truck.

we were driven a for miles

the country side

old pasture ground

circled by woodland.

we disembarked, well aware of much activity around us.

other trucks

soldiers

some in uniform

some not

all with weapons and belts of ammo.

we were told –

now observers you will see.

come on move.

we were brought to where there were great slopes of fresh dug earth

equally mounds of whitish sand or maybe powder,

past which a long ditch.

my stomach churned

I knew this was death.

other trucks covered in canvas arrived. stopping in the distance. Backed toward our direction. Some of the men form lines parallel to each other at the backs of the trucks. Others I’d say about 20 stood nearer the pit by us. Then the back of truck was opened. Men women children pushed dragged thrown –

beaten between the lines of waiting men

run you fuckers! run!

clothes grabbed torn, some naked by the time they were lined up in small groups. Then facing the ditch

immediately shot by the soldiers who had been waiting near to us.

a whole truck load maybe 30 maybe 40 done like that.

now observers something to see yeah.

now shovel! shovel! or you next.

we were to shovel layer of white then layer of earth. my group on one end another group at other end.

once done another truck was emptied. beaten naked people shot . again we’d shovel. I had been trained to be a soldier; I had been trained to kill in official and non-official capacity but this…

I could not breath I could not think.

scorpion night 9 pd lyons

Cherry Blossoms.

lemanshots - Fine Pictures and Digital Art

Designed and created by Josephine R. Unglaub

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Satin Blues

 

an elegance of sorrow

nights, no matter how alone

never wishing that they’d end

sometimes the moon

sometimes the stars

sometimes mortality at midnight

halos struck by strange light

rainbowed by the rain

re d Ellington 1956 newport

I am dead already by pd lyons

red glass bowl w/ Holland tomatoes on a black slate on a green table

I am dead already

~ So

there is nothing really to worry about

~ Although sometimes i still forget

think of myself as living

things to do

places to go

achievement’s to achieve

people to please and all

eventually i come around

focus by saying

” you don’t have to”

usually that’s enough to brig me back to what is

~ Other times,

especially if i have forgotten for maybe days,

years, occasionally decades

it takes stuff a little stronger not much though, you know

just say out loud to my so called self;

“you are already dead “

 helps me relax

brigs me round to that expansive place of what is

a pleasant space of truth

red bowl glass

Robert Burns ~ Auld Lang Syne

DM du Jour

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes
And pou’d the gowans fine.
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld lang syne.

We twa hae sported i’ the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.

And ther’s a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
We’ll tak’ a right good willie-waught,
For auld lang syne.

With all best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2016!

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Learning To Be Friends With The Rain

 

c Mogan Lyons 2016

~

if i put each of these days

end to end

how many times around the world

would they go?

~

no matter what

yes

the only choice

~

living in the peace

so many would die for

i walk the dogs

 old growth

cross clear brooks

splash for drinks

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

sometimes this sense of failure

is all I’ll ever be

sometimes that loneliness

is all I’ll ever see

~

it’s the price for being true

it’s the cost of no surrender

the double helixed blessing

of being me

~

maybe tomorrow

the courage will come

all that ever was –

undone