days when my father took milk and sugar leaving the spoon in his coffee my mother whistled among lilacs and roses mahogany furniture kept well polished special knives and forks only used on holidays
I knew the name of Lilly of the valley not to ever put them in your mouth
there were kittens in the sun porch we watched born from a tabby cat named Felix
there were cherries from our backyard tree so red I thought they were black, tasting like no cherries ever would again
The Girl Next Door By PD Lyons
When I remember Third floor windows Tall white lace sails Summer all running in our veins Her mother in the kitchen Making cool aid and plate full of something Cookie sweet to eat
She wanted me to stay I was afraid, wanted to go home But didn’t want her to know Not wanting to be in this house of too many windows Overlooking the valley
But she wanted me to stay Besides the rains begun Going to be a real storm Already rumblings a darkening horizon
her mother agreed I’ll call your parents. They won’t be worried. You can stay for supper. You like hot dogs don’t you?
that was how I learned not to be afraid of storms Not to hide from thunder or lightning Frances and her mother, exuberant Ohs ahs joy over every Menacing vibration sudden crash Every flash veining skeletal zigzag
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 . Why not consider subscribing on YouTube?
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.
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 . Why not consider subscribing on YouTube?
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.
days when my father took milk and sugar leaving the spoon in his coffee my mother whistled among lilacs and roses mahogany furniture kept well polished special knives and forks only used on holidays
I knew the name of Lilly of the valley not to ever put them in your mouth
there were kittens in the sun porch we watched born from a tabby cat named Felix
there were cherries from our backyard tree so red I thought they were black, tasting like no cherries ever would again
The Girl Next Door By PD Lyons
When I remember Third floor windows Tall white lace sails Summer all running in our veins Her mother in the kitchen Making cool aid and plate full of something Cookie sweet to eat
She wanted me to stay I was afraid, wanted to go home But didn’t want her to know Not wanting to be in this house of too many windows Overlooking the valley
But she wanted me to stay Besides the rains begun Going to be a real storm Already rumblings a darkening horizon
her mother agreed I’ll call your parents. They won’t be worried. You can stay for supper. You like hot dogs don’t you?
that was how I learned not to be afraid of storms Not to hide from thunder or lightning Frances and her mother, exuberant Ohs ahs joy over every Menacing vibration sudden crash Every flash veining skeletal zigzag
from the tiredness of my bones not syllables of warm water mouths rather emanate rich with marrow silent sensations hot cold soft foetal crescents of your ears depth deeper than you know of your eyes the vast rift of tears your endless heart
alone sometimes in the dark I have been a labour for you silently aloud likewise you should read these words so unlike other words each window through which invisible creatures of what cannot be said climb
Originally published bySubterranean Blue Poetry this was part of the winning entriy for the erbacce poetry prize 2019. I once worked in a Jungian residential treatment ctr. in Litchfield Ct. Robin worked there too as did Eva who got lost with me once in a dream of deep winters
Somehow Coming out at Robin’s House Where She Rescued Us with Coffee
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: 112 pages)
