from the book ~ As If the Rain Fell in Ordinary Time, by PD Lyons, 2019
that afternoon she came into the bar
told me she had something to tell me
could I please come outside?
Please.
Sure I said.
I remember a light spring day
maybe even summer
we stood together on the little concrete steps
front door of the bar
I was probably leaning against the railing
most defiantly smoking
she stepped down on the side walk
looking up she said
listen, I just have to tell you…
some other guy she met, really thought he was the one.
I’m so sorry she said but I had to tell you.
I offered to buy her a drink – for old times’ sake
No she said
I’m sorry I made you sad
I’m sure you’ll find someone too.
Good bye
she paused
thanks for being so understanding.
you really are a good man you know.
and left.
I went back in joined my buddy at the bar
I lit a smoke ordered us a round
in those days
we were drinking gin on the rocks with a twist
we were smoking Phillip Morris like the attorney general was a loony tunes
we were betting on the NFL like it owed us a pay check
Anyway before she came in
I had been telling him how I was in a bit of a jam with this young girl
she was so into me
didn’t have the guts to break her heart
and then she comes along and dumps me
Jesus, he said after I told him, that was like some twilight zone episode love story
Thank you to the judges and to Erbacce Crew. I am humbled and honored by this. Cheers Alan!
P D Lyons Winner of the 2019 erbacce-prize for poetry
The annual erbacce-prize for poetry is open from January 1st to May 1st every year. It is entirely FREE to enter thus it attracts top quality poets world-wide… in 2019 we had close to eight thousand entries and all were judged ‘blind’. P D Lyons was the outright winner! Below is the book we produced for him… it is sheer quality poetry, the whole book encompasses a simplicity coupled with deep insight; a truly beautiful collection which reveals more each time it is re-opened… (perfect-bound: 112pages)
Through the generous support of Westmeath County Council a limited edition of 50 numbered and signed copies are available to purchase direct from the poet at €20.00 to include standard postage world wide. I still have a few left contact via comment or pdlyonspoet’yahoo.co.uk
Sometimes I would find the things he left, loose change under the cushions, a little red box of wood matches (that my mother took away), black liquorice candies wrapped in stripped silver foil And once a big silver skeleton key – that he really left for me.
One night I woke up, hearing his voice, his voice form my mother’s room, his voice talking and talking. I went up to the door which was not quite closed – they were in bed together. He was sitting up and mother lay with her arms around him, head on his bare chest. He wasn’t just talking he was reading, so I sat down there in the hallway and listened about Morgana the sister of a king. I guess he didn’t notice my mother was asleep because he kept on reading and whenever he turned the page I thought he would look right at me and smile.
I listened as Morgana looked into the water for pictures of the future and how some of the knights did not like her but there was one, one with dragons on his arms who loved her very much, how it was Morgana who taught the little girls of Avalon to serve the Goddess…And I thought I have to ask him, who is this Goddess?
I must have fallen asleep there on the floor by the door of my mother’s room because the next thing I remember I am being carried and in his arms! My face against pictures of blue stars and a black winged horse on his shoulder. His smell a little like the ocean mixed with something from my mother’s kitchen. His muscles so great that with one arm he held me while with the other pulled back the blankets, swung me down into my bed so fast I almost laughed out loud then tucked me in.
Through my half closed eyes I could see his face coming closer and closer, then his lips touched my forehead – but soft like mother’s kiss even though his breath of smoke and prickly chin were not at all like mother. As he pulled away he said so that I could hardly hear, “Sleep well. Sleep well little Morgana.”
Then I remembered I wanted to ask him… I sat up and said “Tell me -” But he was gone and already the light in my mother’s room put out.
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.
Something in the Night, Lessons On Foreign Languages in a Reeperbahn Café, Once While I Was Away. erbacce-press Liverpool UK c2019 video c2021 pdlyons poet.
If you’d like a copy of the book contact me via email to arrange. inscribed limited editions 20.00euros regular postage incl. anywhere in the world. 15.00Euros if you’re lucky enough to live in Ireland.
good luck. bye!
note there are some sexual references here. no violence, or graphic descriptions
you can read them below but as the youtube folks say if you want the joy of watching yours truly read ’em you gotta go ~
Something in the Night
back then when knowing the night was an obligation
I got to meet you
we had nothing to do but each other
we had no one else we wanted to bother with
I was working at a local gas station
pump the gas, check the oil, fill the radiator, fill the tire
only other things we could sell – cigarettes, maps and coca cola.
I have no idea what you did something textile?
Bobbins, threads, piece work, bonus
somehow, we had met and that was all that mattered.
we liked to drive around at night,
few beers, couple packs of smokes, FM radio.
didn’t go to bars much, drinking there cost more
besides we both had this inability to not piss people off.
last time we were in a bar?
this old Irish guy, the owner, liked you at first
gave you your third drink on the house
but when he was playing pool, money on the table
you kept grabbing the back of the cue just as he shot.
by the third time it wasn’t funny, except to you.
few of the regulars told me; Better get her out of here. Now! So, I did.
we stopped off in the middle of the intersection by St. Joseph’s cemetery
smoking, talking, kissing – more than kissing.
never a soul, not even the cops came by to bother us.
we had some incredible luck when it came to it.
I told you what my favourite breakfast was.
so, you invited me one morning, your mother’s house,
eggs Benedict you made yourself just for me.
I met your little brother then.
he was 7 maybe 10. He asked if I ever went fishing?
sure, when I was your age my dad used to always take me.
must a said I’d take him sometime
cause about a week after we stopped seeing each other I get this phone call
could we go? maybe tomorrow? you know fishing?
I don’t remember how but I told him no. It made me feel sad.
I knew what it was like to believe you were going fishing then not.
And you? Even if you were around, I don’t think there’s anything here you wouldn’t have already known and forgotten long ago.
Lessons on Foreign Languages in A Reeperbahn Café
Trees or torture…
My breasts were made for children and your hands
Choices are limited by the boundaries of the playing surface
How do you know that’s not a table?
We could meet in Ireland by the palm trees.
Everyone drinks Guinness and whiskey, everyone drinks Paddy
Even in the ancient holes of Greece, the big dig and who
wouldn’t give up school for the bones of Archimedes?
To find the way past childhood, finding the past of childhood,
the paths of childhood past the personal to the collective…
Who wouldn’t give up tomorrow for a chance to come into Pandora’s Box?
Well when I am god, I shall bless Pandora, bless Eve, bless all those who
turned away from paradise, instead followed the stars.
Why? Why everything? Why not something else?
Ignorance may be bliss but consciousness divine…
…but if I could meet you in Ireland by the palm trees
yes, even I would drink Paddy whiskey with you from the bones
of Pandora’s ass; and we could trace the historic exile of
our childhood to the music of Springsteen’s: Point
Blank, The Price You Pay, Ties that Bind, as it tins through
some battery cassette. So, roll up another cigarette and pass
the Pandora but first let me see your eyes,
Let me lay my tongue on yours.
Let us swallow some of each other’s spit,
like a Red Indian blood-brother ceremony and
yes, you can be Winnetou if you want to…
When I was in Greece I lived on dirt. No not even dirt but
sand – dust. The dust of hot sun and cruel fate, the dust of
ancient tombs split open like over-ripe fruit covered
everything with a resin crust. We were fond of bones and
murders, sacrifices, lesbians, our Spartan
swords and sleeping children. We hated columns and
Parthenons. Sweated ouzo and goat fat and when we farted
little black olives rolled down and out of our pant legs.
When I was in Europe I lived on sleep. I slept for days in
Wien, Vienna, Vienne, Vienna. Slept for Beethoven at his
tomb and at his little Platz by the statue near the
Shubert ring. I was frozen in the Maria Theresian Natural
History Museum – lost among stuffed and pickled corpses of every
creature known to man.
In Hamburg, the whole city is made of sleep. Sleep like a
giant smog impregnated everything and every moment. Its
embryonic motion grown heavy in a damp heat, like breath on
a still winter night of North Sea drifting downward with
hunger, for those German girls, who with the slenderness of
a homosexual fantasy covered me in the slick semen of their
love. Mouths moaning with love, cunts hungry
with love, assholes a dream of love…
In the states I lived on flesh. The flesh of pigs.
Flesh of Ronald McDonald. Catholic flesh of Christ, bloodless
white and sour. I lived with the flesh of dead dogs, aborted infants;
sucked juices from the fresh wounds of teenage girls down
in the darkness of their daddy’s garages. Dracula had nothing on me man.
I walked the ninety-degree heats of New York City streets.
Streets made of skin and muscle like some giant souvenir of Auschwitz.
Tattoos sweating black ink and muggers.
Whenever I couldn’t buy anything to eat all I had to do was lick the street –
Meat Street USA. And when I could afford to bribe my way out to
the countryside? It was for a breath of fresh blood with a
little something still warm from its own body heat to chew on.
… But now we sit by the palm trees of Ireland
our harps hung up to dry. Pandora’s ass so dry, is
like a sponge sucking up Irish whiskey the way a drowning
man, sucks sea. We don’t sleep any more. The only flesh we
eat is our own. You have met me here have taken the blood
of my wound into your own.
So, my dearest look at me; you have the saddest eyes I have ever known.
Do you remember the peace I stole from you in Hamburg years ago?
Now there is nothing to heal, nothing, no reason to
steal. So, roll up another cigarette. But first let me lay my tongue upon
yours, let my tongue sleep awhile in that sweet hole. Let
us see how long we can stay still like that and yes, you can be Winnetou if you want to.
shadow of crows from the tree disappears behind me to the sky she had crystals hanging in nearly every window of the house purified energy – coming in, going out Mystic Connecticut, the town not the sea port she bought me one for my car that little shop just by the draw bridge had it for years, hung from the rear view mirror one car to another to another
I’ve no idea where it is now though or how I came to part with it disappeared maybe it’s with that lock of her hair she gave me? actually a braid cut from her first hair cut when she was… maybe late twenty’s Called me a stupid jerk when she found out I’d lost it
Another shadow; like crows, like Connecticut, like herself disappears behind me to the sky
PD Lyons Reading from As If The Rain Fell In Ordinary Time erbacce~prize for poetry 2019 erbacce~press Liverpool UK
Pensioners Remiss – incorporates a variety of scenes from my home town Waterbury Ct. St Johns Church for example is still there on the green.
Knowing Now the healing Ways – again influenced by my hometown and my first apartment back in the 70’s.
Atlantic Luncheonette – one of those classic coffee shops in America long before Starbucks or cappuccinos. On the corner opposite the exquisite white marble Waterbury Post Office. Many a skipped school day involved the Atlantic – strategically placed half a block from the library. How ironic, skipped school to hang out in the library. They even let you smoke in there back then but that’s another poem or two…
Thanks for spending time .
cheers.
good luck
bye
!
Pensioners Remiss
When I wanted to see you,
Young and available
Dresses out amidst a blue jean wasteland
Stoned as laughter smoky charms
Dancing any moment unannounced
On the steps of Spanish little Harlem
Turquoise as your eyes church doors
Sacramental wine just opened
A spiral of possibilities each as believable as the past.
When I wanted to see you,
Roads wide open looking to ride
Strong summer muscles
Love like horses into sunset.
Diamonds across that midnight sky
Alive only in your love me eyes.
Breathless barefoot pirouette
Limitless kitchens, dull Frigidaire light.
Icy India Pale Ale fast as you can drink.
Third floor back porch dawn
Aegean blue amongst a city of fearlessness.
When I wanted to see you,
Saint John’s Chapel Christmas
Balsam crushed blood velvet
Crystal choir angel
Mysterious as snow.
The mouth you used an accent of hypnosis
Lead like sorrow obsessed with green
As if summer returned between live pines
My hands held by your own to cup each one instead.
When I wanted to see you,
So much more so than wherever you were
Sharper than anything ever dreamed
So much sooner than now.
Knowing Now the Healing Ways
I could touch you then. I knew you, just around the corner you. Halfway Up the stairs, you. A single rose growing between back yard rubble, you. Travelled by Grey Hound, cross the country, park bench dreamer, double dancer Zelda, you –
A tide of whirlpools. An antebellum majorette beauty queen. You were the most beautiful woman in the world. You were me as a woman. Wanting to be the first one to make love in a whole summer of dry attics never believing for one minute we could end up on the street by Christmas in Connecticut.
I was gonna. I was destined. I was the one. I was the chosen. Could have been Jesus, preferred to be Krishna, hoped only to be Watermelon Sugar. A thing delectable to your lips, a thing you might someday remember without lying or regret.
You were anything possible,
Meeting again someday.
Around the corner, halfway up the stairs,
Eyes still same as my own,
Knowing now the healing ways,
Strong enough for love.
Atlantic Luncheonette
I walked out into a morning
too bright against my shadows.
Three steps down I’m on the pavement
wondering just how able I am to get along –
Stable as loose change,
balanced as a junkie on the prowl.
Still can’t stop thinking about moving
where it is, I’ll finally get to.
My boots are holes turning into blisters.
Cigarettes keep tempting me with immortality.
Girls across the street dare me to smile.
I make up excuses to call what I’m eating food.
The waitress sings to the radio
with commercial interruption asks how I am.
My eggs keep running into hiding,
The coffee strives vainly to hiccup,
I leave a quarter for the singer,
a dollar for the poor.
Ask the women on the corner, how much for conversation?
They say they don’t cater to perversions – try my luck next door.
In 1990 I was lucky enough to travel to Belize. For half the trip we were doing a horse trekking in the highlands. We stayed at a former orange plantation – i remember most vividly the flocks of free flying parrots. They were elegant airborne acrobats so unlike those domesticated souls back in the states. We wold ride through the jungle for hours sometimes lunching by water falls, or swimming into limestone caves. we each were issued a machete to lop off the foliage as we rode. It was deemed poor etiquette to not do your fair share of keeping the trails clear. occasionally we’d pass trees of ripe citrus – reach up from horse back and pick one. Our guide had worked with Harrison Ford on a film based in Belize. He told us he really liked Harrison and became friendly with him. So much so that Harrison promised to take him back to America where he could work for him. But this never happened and now he didn’t like Mr. Harrison Ford too much no more.
Xunantunich is a Mayan site. It had been excavated years ago, a pyramid complex. The steps of which were terrifyingly steep and slippery with wet limestone. All too quickly we would be done with our days of 4-6 hour rides and return to Belize City our only solace being to go on and spend a week on Ambergris Caye discovering the sea.
Xunantunich
The silent policeman Lay himself down Across the great western highway Tired from watching everyone He wants a return to dreaming A return to those days of the high bush Those days of the interior.
Swimming into limestone caves Box of toucan matches Lighted lantern Floats on a little block of wood While on a smoke of kerosene Coming back to him now, the words of his fathers: “So now you know. Everything is alive.”
The silent policeman Lay himself down Across the great western highway Tired of growing heavy with the world He wants a way To avoid End of Paradise Hotels ESSO drums Coca-Cola CESSNAS To return To those days of the interior.
Behind his eyes bare foot women light the lamps Honey shadows seep up into a palm thatch While owls make questions of constellations And rolling in from across the valley A hush answers “From the pale eye of the hunter A single tear drop fell arching over an unseen face It touched Earth and disappeared.”
Ring tail ghosts come by Soft grey kisses through white jungle nets of night Beyond an ancient plaza Immersed in some whisper of wings Jealous eyes of jaguar Two great gold pearls on the edge of rain.
(unfortunately I did not get custody of the photos so none from Belize)
2015 NOTE – in setting up this blog post i search for some info re Xunantunich and found this piece of info kind of interesting, keep in mind i wrote the piece on my flight home in 1990 – from Wikipedia listing –
Xunantunich’s name means “Stone Woman” in the Maya language (Mopan and Yucatec combination name), and, like many names given to Maya archaeological sites, is a modern name; the ancient name is currently unknown. The “Stone Woman” refers to the ghost of a woman claimed by several people to inhabit the site, beginning in 1892. She is dressed completely in white, and has fire-red glowing eyes. She generally appears in front of “El Castillo”, ascends the stone stairs, and disappears into a stone wall.[citation needed]
