PD Lyons reading the first three from As If The Rain Fell In Ordinary Time

 

As the events of 2020 put paid to my intention to promote this book via live readings etc. I have decided to simply read the book in order on short videos. I believe the work should be heard and hope to make that happen here. Thank you if you have for listening. cheers pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk. These first tree are based on my urban youth. Waltzing the Night, Promised Land, Today You Want to See Priscilla ~ c2019 pd lyons

 

• Waltzing the Night

 

holding ourselves like prayers between each other
all summer sway cool tall screened windows
bright sound crickets fireflies glimmer
bare feet, beating hearts
soft by each other’s breath
accented full moon kisses
beyond any daytime horizon…

~

it was one o’clock this morning.
woke up no reason
kitchen floor so cold I hurt for shoes
stood there adjusting to Frigidaire light
three bottles of beer on the second shelf
opened one by the window
chugged away to those long
hard rain halos

 

it’s not the city I used to know with you

 

maybe I go for another
maybe it’ll help me sleep
probably not
these days once I’m up
even beer can’t touch me
deserted by even the small comfort of your ghost
still I sway as if somehow
we’re dancing

 

• Promised Land                                                                                       

 

14 stories up

Sometime after all the twilight zones had ended

Crane my head twin tower view.

 Count all the windows I could see that held a light

 

Another smoke

Watch across the west side highway for freighters

Illumination not of a land locked sort proving an Island after all.

 

I could not help the way we burned through our time together

 How hungry I was

How urgent that you be hungrier.

We left it spinning, the world we knew

Our ragged selves

Cities of our hearts

Wilderness of our bodies

Ghosts of unborn children

Smoke cross the promised land –

What could we give that had not passed?

 

There was that old Pontiac

 Yellow primer Firebird.

 Day into the drink already.

Gonna drive to the city.

You said you had to pee first.

1. Parked at the mall.

You kicked open the door, got out

Instead of going in squatted right there.

Deluge beats over the black top.

 

 Got in a row over that.

For some reason it really pissed me off.

Then in ever escalation you said something.

Whatever it was it made me so sorry for yelling.

I hugged you, cried all over you.

 

We got better after that.

Dried off, had a smoke.

Then I drove.

 

• Today You Want to See Priscilla

                                                                                                                             

She lives two blocks up

from where you have to live with your father

because Priscilla is crazy, and you couldn’t

stay with her.

 

Priscilla makes her money from the cards. But

whenever you ask her to read yours, she always says

she knows you too well and that knowledge

clouds her wisdom.

 

You want to go up to her today, watching from

her cool back room through a crack in the door –

Priscilla, her rich fingers fat with bands of gold and sparkling stones

spreading cards by candlelight

speaking to some stranger in that different kind of voice even you would hardly know.

  

You’re on your way but then Carey has himself a dollar

So, the afternoon gets spent at Daz’s where pin ball’s still a dime

and sometimes you play good enough to pop for extra games