why does wisdom take so long by pd lyons

how many the promises

un kept

those from fifty – sixty years ago

make me weep with their lack of age

woefully apropos for today

why does wisdom take so long?

Baskin-Robbins, poetry and photo by pd lyons

Baskin-Robbins

Sixty- two Chevy pick up
Bondo dust and shot exhaust
Your brother driving 84 east
Neil on the radio
I smoked a million cigarettes
So you wouldn’t try n kiss me
Not cause of that but because your brother already wanted to kill me
Was only driving me to Waterbury
So I wouldn’t have no excuse
To hang around you – Cowgirl in the sand.

poets we know and live with ~ ROWING & THE AUTHOR OF THE JESUS PAPERS SPEAKS by Anne Sexton

 

ROWING

 

 

A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plastic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn’t work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trench-coat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I’d say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.

 

– from The Awful Rowing Towards God 1975

 

( Her eighth collection of poetry is entitled The Awful Rowing Toward God.The title came from her meeting with a Roman Catholic priest who, unwilling to administer last rites, told her “God is in your typewriter.” This gave the poet the desire and willpower to continue living and writing. The Awful Rowing Toward God and The Death Notebooks are among her final works, and both center on the theme of dying

---

 

Anne Sexton

1928–1974

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton#Death

Within 12 years of writing her first sonnet, she was among the honored poets in the U.S.: a Pulitzer Prize winner, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the first female member of the Harvard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.^[10][11]

On October 4, 1974, Sexton had lunch with Kumin to revise galleys for Sexton’s manuscript of The Awful Rowing Toward God, scheduled for publication in March 1975 (Middlebrook 396). On returning home she put on her mother’s old fur coat, removed all her rings, poured herself a glass of vodka, locked herself in her garage, and started the engine of her car, ending her life by carbon monoxide poisoning.^[12]

In an interview over a year before her death, she explained she had written the first drafts of The Awful Rowing Toward God in 20 days with “two days out for despair and three days out in a mental hospital.” She went on to say that she would not allow the poems to be published before her death. She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery & Crematory in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts.

Sexton is seen as the modern model of the confessional poet. Maxine Kumin described Sexton’s work: “She wrote openly about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, and drug addiction at a time when the proprieties embraced none of these as proper topics for poetry.”^[13]

---

THE AUTHOR OF THE JESUS PAPERS SPEAKS

In my dream
I milked a cow,
the terrible udder
like a great rubber lily
sweated in my fingers
and as I yanked,
waiting for the moon juice,
waiting for the white mother,
blood spurted from it
and covered me with shame.
Then God spoke to me and said:
People say only good things about Christmas.
If they want to say something bad,
they whisper.
So I went to the well and drew a baby
out of the hollow water.
Then God spoke to me and said:
Here. Take this gingerbread lady
and put her in your oven.
When the cow gives blood
and the Christ is born
we must all eat sacrifices.
We must all eat beautiful women.

Anne Sexton  from The Book of Folly 1972

 

---

 

the girls i knew in high school were all enamoured with Sylvia. and i must admit i was some what smitten. but there was this teacher of English. she did not debate but rather exposed the rare woman genius the all too common crucifixion the dark stronger than the bright, the strength to take control in a time in a place where all is only waiting around food feeding on food attracted like horseflies to tenderness. the time was she said now and so the time was and so she said it was therefore it would be now and never any other time but. – pd lyons

all photos C. pd lyons photography.

boomerz by pd lyons

Boomerz

I live only in memory
The day to day does not inspire me
I only want to sit here think about what used to be.

Here only in my own home.
Locked doors, paid taxes, insurance policies, protect me.
TV,  petrol chemicals, nourish me.

People not like me outrage me.

I would abandon all other cities for this never to call you anything but by your long-ago name the one your mother whispered once all sea spray hidden away from anyone else but me.

(so a ruff work in progress what do you think?)

 

To wake from sleep with neutral angels

Cross weeping waters   Opiate lilies

Rolled tobacco   Porcelain skin

~

I give out money, paper money for free.

 Answer: Because you are sitting on the streets I was born into this world on.

 

I pass from them streets like loose wrappers

cobbled stones lost mythologies; strangers foreign even to my self.

But  could if I want sift sea salt stolen dreams.  Camera fantastic songs.

 Long meandering trails to and from siren spiralling stairs.

 A better life only in theory because I would give up all other cities for this.

 

To wake from sleep with nameless angels

Cross weeping water smugglers

Beggar a hazy sun dry enough for a nod.

~

Soft we talk knowing no tomorrows. 

your head rests on my shoulder. Safe from all clack and clatter,

from hard shelters, rough searchers, mingling watery blood sucked ones.

Only respite from the past, we drift.

 

I tell you stories of cities abandoned long ago

Where warmth was free. Where angels had names

Where heroes would rescue even you.

Asleep without being asleep, your head on my shoulder.

I don’t move when tenderly

You pooch my pockets

 find something worth taking.

 Let you have it

 not moving while you leave

she to her own personal buddha. words and photos by PD Lyons

 

 

she  to her own personal buddha

asks

again.

~

the answer

same again.

~

of course she said smiling at her self

again.

~

 as if in reiteration

the buddha

yawns

meows 

again.

.

Cuirt Annual 21 2006 International Festival of Literature Ireland. PD Lyons reading his work from it.

The Cuirt International Festival of Literature is Ireland’s leading festival. In 2006 it’s 21st year the editors Alan Hayes & Maura Kennedy selected one of my poems to appear in the anthology along side such artist as Seamus Heany, Edna O’Brien, Nikki Giovanni, Eoin Colfer and many fine others. So very grateful to have been there. Thank you for watching & reading.

Waltzing Miss Jeanie

The sky barely visible

Gunmetal cold keeps each bit of snow completely separate.

Sounds, most into silence or muffled by a swish and swirl

As my horse moves through.

Imagine sand against a giant hourglass,

Wicked witch of the west,

There’s no place like home…

Nothing else moves,

Rock walls mostly covered

Drainage ditches camouflaged

Snow drifts level the landscape almost beyond illusion.

By memory only we keep to the road.

Imagine being the first to cross this land in winter

And if it were a time before horses…?

Off the open ridge we cut down to where the pine woods

Shelter enough so we can pick up the pace.

Occasionally over burdened snow spills,

Sometimes peeling bits of green, chunks of old ice, thuds magnified by the quiet.

Perhaps an excuse to break monotony

Or some primal memory aroused –

She spooks.

Imagine double barrel blast, a restless dragon, a living legend…

So I talk her through; my voice being a calm place for her to focus.

So I sing, putting the name she knows into the song,

My fathers’ curious choice for a lullaby he used to sing to me.

Imagine not yet five years old, frightened from things that you don’t even have words for.

Things that move only in those darker places in your room,

And then his heavy footsteps,

the weight of his body as he sits on the edge the bed,

his strong steady hands sometimes rubbing sometimes patting

while always singing over and over until finally asleep you couldn’t ask him to again…

We make our way like that now,

Dealing with imagined as well as real risks –

Patches of ice beneath this rising snow upon this rising, winding road

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

versions of this were published by Hotmetal Press and West47 Galway arts, Inquietudes Literary Journal & erbacce press.

~ some of the most rare and wonderful moments of my life were brought to me by horses ( lovers and acid). i have actually been out in blizzard conditions on horse back albeit in Connecticut and only a few miles to go. Jeanie was a hot little chestnut Morgan mare, she taught me much, broke my heart and a few bones in the process. I am very grateful for having known her.

good luck bye! ~

Urge for Going, poetry by Joni Mitchell song versions by by Tom Rush, Joni & Mary Black

I know this is from the beautiful poet Joni Mitchell but the song version I first heard was by Tom. I’ll include a version by her and one by Mary Black , another of my favourites. But first I Invite you

 to read the poetry before you listen  to the songs.

Today the sky is steel grey and the winter has found it’s way back. Snow and the outside air hurts my fingers…

So give it a read and a listen yeah? Tell me he don’t make that guitar skate like  sharp blades upon a black ice lake….

 

Lyrics

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
And all trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going but I never seem to go
I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in
I had me a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling’s heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
And bully winds came around pushed them face down in the snow
He got the urge for going and I had to let him go
He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown

And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in
Now the warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying and all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight flapping and racing on before the snow
They’ve got the urge for going and they’ve got the wings so they can go
They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in
I’ll ply the fire with kindling and pull the blankets to my chin
I’ll lock the vagrant winter out and I’ll bolt my wandering in
I’d like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or so
But she’s got the urge for going so I guess she’ll have to go
She get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empires are falling down
And winter’s closing in
And I get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Joni Mitchell

Urge For Going lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing,

Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

 

The Road You Mean by P D Lyons for Brigid Walshe my friend

 

The Road You Mean 

 

today the January snow

the sky a heavy dark of steel

made those old whiskery fence posts seem black

and too the fingers of those tall swaying trees

seemed to be searching for something 

I could not see what for

until the crows came speaking your name

and I remembered

 

Lake Garda / Riva del Garda #lakegarda

pd lyons pix 11/2021