Mira Gut by pd Lyons as published by Lost Sparrow Press

 

There are no flowers here but snow.

The bay not yet free chunked with ice

the white of which exists only against a distant liquid sea.

at least the sun visits, comforting,

illusion though it is,

visions of thawing, melting down to something green.

 

In the long sleep of winter, I have dreamed

something Spanish that you said along a twilight turquoise

something soft covering sun drenched shoulders

silver threads   an old man’s harp

played for money by the moon

 

http://lostsparrowpress.com/shop/#!/The-Lost-Sparrow/p/86541732/category=0

Nocturnes At The Borders & Leaving This House, as published by Subterranean Blue Poetry

Why do I like Subterranean Blue Poetry?

Because in addition to a real cool name they have fine sense of the poetic – very happy to have been chosen to keep such good company!

Subterranean Blue Poetry

Volume V Issue VII

(July 2017)

Subterranean Blue Poetry

www.subterraneanbluepoetry.com

© 2017

Nocturnes At The Borders

by PD Lyons
 

a long passing caravan of days

deserted debris

   hope a pitch black oasis –

sparkling the only un-still things

such as stars, jewel throat ghosts,

your eyes beyond all knowledge,

the only dark that shines –

   a different kind of sun.
 

my mouth for your love

dreams smoke wandering horizons

red glow desert

a voice wet silk

drawn as if my skin

found out in the wind

perfumed by foreign creatures

nourished by such exploring

my heart contains a fertile seed

   A treasure trove for beetles an insect paradise.
 

I saw you with tears in American gowns

you were just like Picasso but knelt on the ground

as if genuflecting before the print page you’d inhale

the spirit right out of his grave and I just couldn’t

take it so I wandered around as if I could shake you

Like salt from my skull

   Always returning an orbit of doubt.
 

 

The scent of your soapy skin draws me in

ways I cannot identify

like ivory in the morning someplace else away

beyond a snow tipped mountain

before the savannahs open prayer

dark meandering luxurious survival

   Our daring selves mortal among the Edens.

 

 

 

 

Leaving This House

by PD Lyons

 

Through leopard clouds the day’s sunlit fingers open,

soft afternoon, occasional whispers between finches

knowing my need for such kindness

even crows come quietly…
 

What is it of memory and seasons?

What does this shift to autumn bring me?

Why remember what I do? Forget what I forget?
 

A bed of rolled up cotton,

sun dried white sheets against pale skin,

wishing it was some hangover

so wind chimes could sound beautiful again,

sunlight be inviting and coffee all the medicine you’d need.
 

I know of this other time when drowsy dancing on sweet wine

we sank beneath that wind chime tree

surrendered on the beating earth

something more than blood and bones,

a tender lightening wove between us

our own muscles able to morph the world.
 

Now such things cannot be spoke of.

Distorted by sick eyes they’d only deepen your

regrets, as if what was could ever not be.

If you responded to preaching, I’d simply preach.

Instead I must lure you by disguise –
 

Coffee from thin sharp equatorial mountains,

audibly stirred blue stone mug.

Herbs infused with full ripe summers.

Small secret woodland tinctures.

Ointments rich in years of flowers.

Oils soaked in sunlight, stored in our own damp cellar

warmed as needed over an open flame.
 

Somewhere past all anger, melted only by tears, yield the ways of memory.

 

A Barlow Knife

at that time the knife he carried with him was a Barlow

she noticed it as they sat by some small unnamed body of water

he was making slices off the few good wild apples they’d found

she said oh a Barlow?  you have a Barlow knife?

my dad had one. he always had it with him. he used to let me use it.

sometimes we went fishing,

sometimes he let me cut up apples too.

when he died my brother got it.

that night he drove into town

went into the sporting goods shop

he picked out one for her

not exactly the same as his

not heavy and bone like her dads

but a ruby red

two good blades

trimmed by a bit of brass

it was the only thing he ever gave her

besides long deep kisses

slices of secret wild apples

spiced by an Indian summer

haunted by an early winter

 

 

 

The Great God Pan Is Dead by pd lyons

 

photographer unknown

 

Within the pages of illusion,

Before the glass of no reflection,

The sensuous form of her adoration,

(White on blonde)

Rises to the occasion of the

Mysterious relation between,

The pale worship of a

Vanishing god and the blue

Whispers of her blood.

As fevered as silk in cedar,

Fanatical as dew dipped spider webs;

She’s come and gone.

Her absence heavy in the spicy

Dust of death, where her foot steps

Spell out the haunting word

Amen

 

1987

memorial by pd lyons

ever onward let me go
ever onward let me go home

this world of lamentation
these buds of easy bloom

you don’t know where
but i’ll find my way

so let me go

i’ll leave a little light for you – if i can

 

remembered a dream i had last night by pd lyons

 

someone i didn’t know had come to the front door

 told me you were looking for me

on horses we used to own

i couldn’t believe my luck

went to meet you

took those trails we used to take

certain that’s the way you’d come

raced the river

edged the narrow ridge

ducked low hung branches

even found

the old red barn

the wild turkey barn

the shelter from the rain barn

surprised  after all these years-

it hadn’t changed at all

 

 

Year Book & Tramuda Blues as published in Shot Glass Journal

Thank you to the editors of Shot Glass Journal for supporting my work. These appear in Issue #20 September 2016.

http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/preview/pd_lyons2.html

~

Year Book

these are the streets
I came from.
these are the people I knew;
who were gonna live forever.

names I cannot now recall
ways that I cannot find
places no longer there
unrecognisable even in daylight.

if you live long enough
no one will know what you’re talking about

 

 

 

Tramuda Blues

woke up this afternoon
my arms still felt like they were holding you.
I had been dreaming about you,
probably because I slept cold on the floor
and wanted to be warm.

I tried to work some but your presence kept distracting me
until I couldn’t help but give in.
got dressed. got out by the reservoir
just in time to watch the first sunset of the year
when my breath came up like smoke

 

pdlyonsphoto 2016

World Teachers’ Day – Big Giant Thank You!

Over all my years of   schooling where I learned to read, to write,  to be – I have had many many wonderful teachers. I have also had the ones who didn’t make much impression and a few who I would be happy to call them out should I meet them today and at least ask them why they bothered to enter the profession.

But today is a day for those who were the stars in my becoming who I am  – a pretty descent bloke in my own expert opinion. Any way every day I write and every word I write i must thank my teachers for. Humbly and luckily there are two of my English teachers, one from high school and one from my university days that actually take the time to follow this blog. So to them and to all those others, especially from my younger days when I did not know how lucky I was to have them –

big giant

 

THANK YOU!

Apologies

for the delay.

Sincerely,

the boy in the back

 

What Is True Remains

for me writing is something I do,

sometimes I want to

sometimes I don’t,

but always I do.

as if someday maybe all those written words,

sifted through,

subtracted from ,

will leave remaining some thing I don’t know,

but want to find out –

what’s left after I subtract all the words of a life time?

that’s what I want from it.

For what is true remains.

sometimes in this writing life

ruff fragment from : ceremonies of the horsemen, by pd lyons

 

“I support the whole universe with a single fragment of myself” – Bhagavad Gita

there will be a time when I walk alone no possibility of interruption, no sense of anything but wonder. ready to go anywhere – I will alone step upon a beach of star dust, a twilight evening morning without distractions of any sun rise. Body resembling translucent moons encircled with rings like Jupiter silver oh you know what I mean.

to walk alone totally alone; the great adventure that. every step a holy ground, every step unknown places beckoning without distraction. the only one around, me walking without reluctance across the universe. And when like some great invisible hand reaches out cupping me as if my whole body but a sweet lovers cheek, the last eyes I see before I know of eyes no longer? my own reflected back across an endless sky as if in kissing my own self one brief momentary glimpse of the Krishna that is and always has been me.

No longer afraid, narcissism the enduring aspect of the world in the jingle jangle mornings I have followed and loved only you.

scorpion night 1

I’d like to be the ghost on the beach with regards to M&M & Emily

I’d like to be the ghost on the beach

haunt the place where sand meets sea

to know I’d be forever chained

to always be what must remain

better than any heaven be

if I could haunt the sand and sea