Xunantunich, by pd lyons – from Myths of Multiplicity

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.

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

http://www.metbelize.com/lodging.html

(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]}

Xunantunich – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xunantunich

myths of multiplicity by pd lyons 2014 runner up erbacce poetry prize

23.0ct.oz9 Pre Post Script

beside those trees

Little Russia/ thanks again to calliope nerve. this was written for my friend jim back in the days of smoke:

Little Russia

No one knows for sure how

Maybe some ice age fluke

Some shamanistic trance gone awry

But some how it is there

Just a few acres wild weeds witnessed by an empty house an

Abandoned sheet metal shop standing where once the white wood slaughter house once stood where layer after layer of thick lead paint could not keep old blood from seeping through

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

just a few acres wedged in by a half circle ridge of glacier rock and sapling hardwoods where wolves though heard are never seen and leave no trace not even in the snow where only smooth soled sets of footprints going in disappear mid filed and like wise sometimes appear mid filed heading out and all through the month of November any remnant of growing thing be it stem or stalk or stick, each night is tipped with a single never freezing liquid drop such are the tears from all those who pass in one direction or the other through what we called Little Russia.

2. When I was a kid at school we had the books

They had all the symbols in them even satanic ones

All the symbols of the world

Old and new.

But one day this man came, he went around to all the class rooms.

He took away all our books.

Even the teachers were mad at this

But they had to give us other books.

New books without all the symbols.

Now they don’t teach you anything,

Just reading comprehension – you read something they give you,

Then you answer a question about what you read

Then you get a degree

Then you forget it.

But I remember we had the books

They had ever symbol in the world even the satanic ones

All the symbols old and new –

Now people don’t know anything.

They don’t know this is an ancient world,

They think it’s only six thousand years but its not.

Its millions and millions.

We had the symbols once but they were taken away.

And I know this, even though people don’t know them anymore,

There would be no world without the symbols.

And I know this, there’s still a place where you can find them,

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

Under the bark of old wood, drifting under pieces of bark and branches

All what people say are just worm marks the symbols of the world old and new made by such worms as those there are in Little Russia.

3. What they don’t teach anymore about photosynthesis in schools?

That each leaf of each tree makes a photograph, an image of what’s around it. This is how there are many worlds at once.

each year when the leaves fall the images are stored inside the tree and when the new leaves appear they do so with all the images taken by all those leaves that came before and then through out the growing season these fresh leaves take additional photographs. The images get stronger and stronger depending on how many photographs of them have been stored. The longer something is there the stronger it becomes – building up substance over the years.

that’s why if you parked a model A here beside this tree and left it there eventually the real car would disintegrate but then be replaced by an image of the car an image created by thirty years of constant photographing by multitudes of leaves. Thus these photos are synthesised into an image so

That long after the original had rotted away

That model A

No mechanic can make run

No grease fills its crank case

No gasoline fills its gas tank

You sat in it made it go up and down up and down

Then ran home shouting

Grandpa! Grandpa! I flew the car! I flew the car!

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery.

Didn’t we meet there once?

Weren’t you the one draped in skins?

Smile polished sepia

Black eyes stranded behind silver languages

Mindful of Ukraine choirs before the war

Dear one, dear one, my dear dear dear one

Starlings of tears each familiar voice polished crystal snow

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

( for Jim when he lived in a tent by a river in New Milford ct. – we met while I stopped for a smoke, we shared a few and had a conversation. it was winter and I only had a fiver to give him and a half a pack of Marlboros – he gave me this poem. I tried for years to do it justice. He’d a done it better himself. Anyway the important thing is Jim not the poem – so here you go Jim – this ones for you, and maybe all those who unlike yourself never had a chance with all the symbols of the world.)

—

PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is https://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon’s LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons

Xunantunich, by pd lyons – from Myths of Multiplicity

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  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 to 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.

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

http://www.metbelize.com/lodging.html

(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]}

Xunantunich – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xunantunich

myths of multiplicity by pd lyons 2014 runner up erbacce poetry prize

NOT QUITE TOMAS, poem by pd lyons

NOT QUITE TOMAS

Crosses the church yard
W/a girl that would have been Sorcha if it were

How much more than footsteps
Between us now

Yet still I look
Expecting him has caught my eye

There used to be horses before Cabra
Sanctuary on the Liffey

Our children would meet, play,
Remember one another’s birthdays

23.0ct.oz9 Pre Post Script

beside those trees

Little Russia/ thanks again to calliope nerve. this was written for my friend jim back in the days of smoke:

Little Russia

No one knows for sure how

Maybe some ice age fluke

Some shamanistic trance gone awry

But some how it is there

Just a few acres wild weeds witnessed by an empty house an

Abandoned sheet metal shop standing where once the white wood slaughter house once stood where layer after layer of thick lead paint could not keep old blood from seeping through

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

just a few acres wedged in by a half circle ridge of glacier rock and sapling hardwoods where wolves though heard are never seen and leave no trace not even in the snow where only smooth soled sets of footprints going in disappear mid filed and like wise sometimes appear mid filed heading out and all through the month of November any remnant of growing thing be it stem or stalk or stick, each night is tipped with a single never freezing liquid drop such are the tears from all those who pass in one direction or the other through what we called Little Russia.

2. When I was a kid at school we had the books

They had all the symbols in them even satanic ones

All the symbols of the world

Old and new.

But one day this man came, he went around to all the class rooms.

He took away all our books.

Even the teachers were mad at this

But they had to give us other books.

New books without all the symbols.

Now they don’t teach you anything,

Just reading comprehension – you read something they give you,

Then you answer a question about what you read

Then you get a degree

Then you forget it.

But I remember we had the books

They had ever symbol in the world even the satanic ones

All the symbols old and new –

Now people don’t know anything.

They don’t know this is an ancient world,

They think it’s only six thousand years but its not.

Its millions and millions.

We had the symbols once but they were taken away.

And I know this, even though people don’t know them anymore,

There would be no world without the symbols.

And I know this, there’s still a place where you can find them,

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

Under the bark of old wood, drifting under pieces of bark and branches

All what people say are just worm marks the symbols of the world old and new made by such worms as those there are in Little Russia.

3. What they don’t teach anymore about photosynthesis in schools?

That each leaf of each tree makes a photograph, an image of what’s around it. This is how there are many worlds at once.

each year when the leaves fall the images are stored inside the tree and when the new leaves appear they do so with all the images taken by all those leaves that came before and then through out the growing season these fresh leaves take additional photographs. The images get stronger and stronger depending on how many photographs of them have been stored. The longer something is there the stronger it becomes – building up substance over the years.

that’s why if you parked a model A here beside this tree and left it there eventually the real car would disintegrate but then be replaced by an image of the car an image created by thirty years of constant photographing by multitudes of leaves. Thus these photos are synthesised into an image so

That long after the original had rotted away

That model A

No mechanic can make run

No grease fills its crank case

No gasoline fills its gas tank

You sat in it made it go up and down up and down

Then ran home shouting

Grandpa! Grandpa! I flew the car! I flew the car!

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery.

Didn’t we meet there once?

Weren’t you the one draped in skins?

Smile polished sepia

Black eyes stranded behind silver languages

Mindful of Ukraine choirs before the war

Dear one, dear one, my dear dear dear one

Starlings of tears each familiar voice polished crystal snow

Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery

( for Jim when he lived in a tent by a river in New Milford ct. – we met while I stopped for a smoke, we shared a few and had a conversation. it was winter and I only had a fiver to give him and a half a pack of Marlboros – he gave me this poem. I tried for years to do it justice. He’d a done it better himself. Anyway the important thing is Jim not the poem – so here you go Jim – this ones for you, and maybe all those who unlike yourself never had a chance with all the symbols of the world.)

—

PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is https://pdlyons.wordpress.com/.

Now On This side Of The Highway , Sometimes I Still Think Of You, by pd lyons

Now on this side of the highway

 

I spend more time on looking back than anything

 

Turns I should have took

Places it would have been better if I stopped

 

Mostly haze as if dust and sun

conspired with fog and dark

salt and grit   steam and slick

But anyway after a million miles or so

I still see you

clear

 

As if I could convince you one more time

As if you’d still be in that same old town

 

Maybe you are

Maybe you’re still with that boy who worked the bowling pins

Bluest eyes we either saw

But I didn’t have the time to stay then

 Figure it  out

Did you really   love him

and if so was it more than me

 

See there were these wide empty spaces

Pulling like fish hooks in my heart

Wanting me in ways I never thought you could have

And now?

Ah there’s a big rig pulling over

Wonder how many miles

Driving straight into this evening sun

He’ll get me

 

She Would, by pd lyons – floppy version

 

She Would

turn the armadillo
tickle his stomach with her tongue

black beetle tears swoll
June bugs snap high heels

crickets rip trying on new clothes
caterpillars hum dull dreams of a sex life

through irises and junipers
these she breaths

 

recently re-discoverd a file untouched since it’s floppy disc days, called “A Work On”. About 50 pages of various state of stuff. As the above indicates the 1980 6’s was a place of intriguing possibility.

Porcelain, by Pd Lyons, Inspired by the music of Helen Jane Long as published by Boyne Berries

Porcelain

cold spills of rain

magpies fly
always searching with the light
always dreaming until dawn
when I wake and think you’re here

coffee on the stove
pale light over the stove
I would often think of you
dark mornings just before dawn
standing in this spot – you’d make mine with hot milk

the pain of coffee much to hot to drink
the ache of winter haunts my hands
when I close my eyes I cannot see you any more

cold and spills of rain
the music porcelain plays again

 

(Inspired by the music of Helen Jane Long/ www.helenjanelong.com)

 

as published by Boyne Berries Magazine http://boyneberries.blogspot.ie/

 

Years back I was lucky enough to discover and purchase this Helen Jane Long CD – Porcelain. At one point i was working on this long piece of poetry. The title track of the CD I had set on repeat because it was  evocative of the mood I was working with. Once I was finished with that , I just had to write one dedicated to Helen’s exquisite work. Hope if she every reads it she’d approve.

At some point I sent it to Boyne Berries magazine where they were kind enough to publish it.

after a day of rain, poem by pd lyons

Indian Pipe @ sleeping giant

after a day of rain

white flowers

before a young girl

small songs upon the mist

on wendy decorating the new apt, by pd lyons

 

 

 

i dont want to talk to you

maybe show you maybe not

little more to the left but not really so close as all that

morning when the door knocked open

let no one enter without waking me

barefoot naked knife in hand

out the back three flights down

running i almost followed

almost let the dog go

 

But by then he was gone.

 

little more to the right but not as close as all that

night arguing about something

and where was the dog

what did he do

the fuckin dog

didnt you really mean

why didnt i do something

equally raging i wanted to know

why didnt you do something

why didnt you make it different

he came back alright

But by then you were gone.