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

Twilight Zone Episode Love Story by PD Lyons ~ read by the author

a girl, a bar, a friend, a gin, a city ~

a bit of memory lane

from the book ~ As If the Rain Fell in Ordinary Time, by PD Lyons, 2019

Diary by PD Lyons ~ for Anne & all the children of the world!

wrote this in 2014 with Anne Frank in mind. Today I wish to rededicate to all the children of this world. this world of war. this world of poverty & hunger. this world where the smartest safest people on the planet keep hiring psychopaths to run their countries.

Diary

Dust in the corner

Pale light through loose boards

Soft paper pages partially filled

So small

The world with all its bigness

Could have so easily passed by.

~

Will we, all of us leave the same absence?

Know the same impossible loneliness,

As if somehow shared, we could know one another ,

~

We have all touched this world with little fingers,

As have I;

Not as some imagining or speculation

But as a human being.

Certain of my own sense of purpose.

So many things bigger than me.

So many things I could not wait to do.

How long it takes to be a grown up.

~

Unlike you I do know the story’s end.

Unlike you I could not, not know.

Remember me this way:

Small as I was, it all fit into my life.

(for Anne)

wrote this in 2014 with Anne Frank in mind. Today I wish to rededicate to all the children of this world. this world of war. this world of poverty & hunger. this world where the smartest safest people on the planet keep hiring psychopaths to run their countries.

sometimes autumn is all there is

Hope the day brings some light your way…

the poet PD Lyons Reading from As If The Rain Fell In Ordinary Time ~ part 3, w/text

~todays menu~

Pensioners Remiss

Knowing Now the Healing Ways

Atlantic Luncheonette 

~

themes: growing old, 1970’s, love, city

 

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…

 

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!

 

 

• 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.

  I bump into an old friend who asks about my wife,

I say I didn’t know I had one.

Then he’s handing me a ten spot

 says here go catch a cab.

I hand the driver a social security card

he says this ain’t worth noting unless your old.

I tell him my hearts just gone arthritic

He says here pal try a gun.

No Matter How Hard I Wait by PD Lyons

No matter how hard I wait,

Rain won’t stop any sooner.

 I can focus on streaming bay window panes.

Or distance, green as it is rolling up to a still bare tree line.

Or even something unrelated like a little pile of shit left by the neighbour dog.

Could I stand here all day?

Instead get dressed,

Yoga later or maybe not at all.

There is a softness an absence of anxiety allows.

A nonchalant free from worry over what to do,

When after all there is nothing –

Things will remind me no matter what I choose.

 Tears a lot like rain,

Seem to never stop until they do and

Then they don’t

Again

.

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ruffs from pd lyons

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scorpion night 10 pdlyons

 

ruff poems

it was me with nothing left

to spire about

a complete enemy of words

a point of hot winter sun

hard glass walled heart un-bending

damp handed pen

not a thing left

at this point remembering the perfect portrait of the artist

touched not a myalgic fibre of my un-known self

so to hallowed hands

Ulysses trust all my open wound n proud flesh

one last a miracle

heal

bruised leg muse

heal

every curse of every failure

heal

father

heal

myself

purged

lazy soul

quick silver quenched

go on

do on

no do

more

a new

 

*

when last seas

iodizing sharif

hoarse whispers long meandering

scented by late November birth

salted scented tinctured gloves

slipping sticking sable sweat

soundly sighing satin and sighing

mother held by other hands I was

 

*

some un provoked violence

I’d bring up

sightless wordless

rage

shake n smash

slap n wake n pull

from a constricting bag of skin

a weep a wake

to leave breath n bone behind again

 

*

what waits

outside the darking dogs

secret traffics

pre day dawn

natural as breathed

sooner than not

seeped stopped

eased no more wondering

all that other time at last

briefer miracle

no more so I know

falsely I am

every changing shape shifting

so called life

a moment thing

 

which my am I?

 

*

My old cities

rose up out

from above

 ruins bright n shining

goliath shrines

silver unlike any bird

shadowing resurrected bays

long veined polished rivers

symphonically far as any ancient woodland lore

 

*

propped up

best I can

most uncomfortable ever bed

 

crow sounds

 silver sun shadows the page

all it takes to ease the ache

not even knowing

what I read

unconcerned

the largeness an open window

dissolves all imposed restrictions

of my self

and what would comfort done?

a sleep til noon then what?

*

Old shirt

smells

days

walking laying

sleeping eating

over-steamed radiators

warm spells February spring

But

the colour is good

fit is right and when I catch myself

passing mirrors in hallways

bathrooms

shop windows

turned off televisions

Stop

and/or

glance

at

who I am

breath caught a moment

Old shirt smell

still me

still who I was

and am now

years later

in need of a shower

 

*

my daughter asks me

why did people invent war…

don’t hey know it’s the devil no god that likes war?

do children have to fight

do they kill children too

boys?

and girls?

how old?

why don’t the soldiers just quit

 

and then the sound of helicopter passing

she thinks it wondrous dashes off to look

unlike those for whom that sound is terror

 

because of them

we must love the world

even more.

 

*

today

walking with trees

steps to my breath

thinking

the joy of being alive

is free

 

*

colours

all on a merry day

each steps a moment

pass the dancer

un seen dance

 

if you can see it

you’re not it.

 

*

 

all the same wonderings

ages of ifs

lifetimes of whys

each life

 history of wonderings

where it leads

where it goes

how it begins

and whatever is the selling point?

good business

machinery of welcome

voices of an independent language

 

give way silenter than plastic tombs

small electric dances springs

a whirl only god could hear

if the ear of god had no hair no wax no smell

 

but god

has pious milk bone men

absolution in the dark

disciplined n cleansed

children

in this dark & the ear of god

blind as onan eyes

silent voices raw language

silent screams despaired on crosses born

all those wondrous children hearts

their darkness

a long test of utter failure.

 

*

and quite back

all winter skirts n scarves

chapel of candle smoke

shadow shifts

all some

warm whispered

deep into pools

of clear n dark n blue

 

*

stone

silent selfish

walls

no weather

no violence

no movement freely done

blind witness

observe

all that’s done

all un done

 

*

not knowing what is

birds no longer pass

instead

songs in my heart

 

*

women shapes

dapple grey

helix trees

any shadow moon

pools deeper that any sun

 

*

slow

moon

miles ran

rain bent

poplar pine

remembered snow

flickering yellowing

butterly lite

echoes of breath

along washing windows

as if washed

might sense

a meaning other than tomorrow

april comes

and here I am

un gone

un knowning

 

Sometimes in this Writing Process from scraps to ruff to finish~ How the Goddess of Wisdom Taught Me the Tarantella as read by the poet

so the way this went was up in bed this morning after second coffee. only paper sticky notes (pink) sitting quiet spacey then this came first the tongues then other bits. Now I’ll transcribe into first ruff draft. this time using keyboard. sometimes a yellow pad is the first transcription. Sometimes there is only one sometimes there are many edits, the number depends on my things but mostly on my self. some photos of the original notes as you may see it is part of the illegible scribble that is an integral part of the process .

So the first bit =

And she said look

And I did seeing the play of sunlight slip

 along the green hills a silver streak above the valley

a river mirroring catching sapphires between the roiling cumulus clouds….

SO Right away i notice too many the’s breaking up the image. Also I need to look up cumulus to make sure hos are the clouds I want… lets try it this way ~

she said look so I did seeing the play of sunlight slip

 along green hills a silver streak along the valley

a river mirroring, catching sapphires from between cumulus clouds 

Or Wait Maybe This ?

she said look so I did seeing the play of sunlight slip

 along green hills a silver streak along the valley

a river mirroring, catching sapphires from between the cumulus…

So as you can tell or if not let me tell you it is a longish process sometimes. Anyway here’s the rest a first ruff ~

How the Goddess of Wisdom Taught Me the Tarantella 

she said look so I did seeing the play of sunlight slip

 along green hills a silver streak along the valley

a river mirroring, catching sapphires from between the cumulus 

she said sing

so i offered 

breathless wordless a what else can i do but be true refrain

harmonic of all i’d seen and all i’d ever see

she said dance

so we embraced a dance named for spiders

mingling sweat lead our lips to meet

undisciplined tongues ballerinas  inside our mouths

she said hush

so i  took breath 

together we sunk dampness upon a warm green earth

she said know

and I was certain.

and so as of 30 july 2021 this is where its at ~

How the Goddess of Wisdom Taught Me the Tarantella 

she said look

so I saw the play of sunlight slip

  green hills a silver streak along the valley

a river mirroring, catching sapphires between the cumulus 

 

she said sing

so i offered 

breathless wordless a true refrain

harmonic of all I’d seen

 all I’d ever see

 

she said dance

so, we embraced a dance named for spiders

 lead our lips to meet

our mouths undisciplined

tongues ballerinas

 

she said hush

so together we sank damp

upon a warm green earth

 

she said know

and I was certain.

Poem for All Seasons by pd lyons

The shade

of

old

trees

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  ever onward something goes

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  nyc pdlyons

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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 

~

then as if in reiteration

the buddha

yawns

meows 

again

.