Pdlyons's Explorations
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.
In My Country
Women walk on eggshells
The way they dress a rapist’s defense strategy
Their silence confers consent
Their bodies always up for grabs
In every way
There is no privacy especially of the womb
They may be legally and religiously sacrificed on the altar of boys-will-be-boys
They may be murdered at will
But have dubious right to self defense
They are not heard
They are not believed
They are not counted
Their labour not valued
That they are
Our mothers
Our sisters
Our daughters
Our beloved
May be conveniently ignored
Easier then to believe,
They are property
of the male
of the party
the state
full breasts dreaming for the hungry mouths of bees
soft in a gold of sunshine sung by small birds invisible
day dream ripples dull grey puddle answers spilling over the edge
storm gutters blocked by neglect
and wishes would ride the open mouth kisses of our own
Wishing You the Constant Joy of Your Own Song
The artist whose voice
still goes right through me
most exquisite of them all
I know exact and precise
As if I really knew you ~
to be forever in that moment
to be forever that creation
Where always was your joy
That is exactly where
you should always be.
First time you were 21 years old
Toads Bar in New Haven
Flew straight through
First album
One gig
No banter
No break
Your voice went right through me.
Person I was with, rest of the place, all disappeared.
And I knew the only joy you’d ever know
Would be the art of your own creation.
Now decades come and go
Albums now CD’s
Politics a torture
religion and Family
curses and blessings
And me someone you’ll never know
What would I wish for you if I knew that wish would come true?
i never knew Bukowski. i hadn’t even heard of him for most of my life. i think i was 52 when i first read anything by him – despite work of mine appearing in print with his back in the early 80’s . i knew little about his real life but what came from the poetry (never read a novel by him) – i don’t remember his words but i still remember the rush of honest poetry i discovered there – how beauty cannot be subdued by drink drugs abuse of any kind. how the humanity of the human spirit will not be denied – even if the only place it can manifest is in the fact of not killing the cat who pisses all over you while you’re sleeping one off in bed.
the following poem was published by Caliope Nerve in October 2009, http://calliopenerve.blogspot.ie/search/label/PD%20Lyons it was probably written in 06-07 :
Idiot me picks now
6000 miles away at 52
To discover him
Still glad I didn’t stay in Waterbury
Find him sooner
Probably still be pukeing
Out in the after last call
Parking lot of now what am I gonna do
Or else back in jail
Or else still with one of the xes
Or else not even alive
~
Tonight just had a chicken and ham sandwich on rye
And its sometime after midnight
And I’ll probably still be up @ 6 maybe half 6
Do some yoga make coffee for the wife
Bring it to her in bed
Get some pancakes going for the kid
And be happy to do so
~
No not envious
Not regretful
Rather peaceful
Glad to be out of it
That’s the kind of poet I’m happy to live with
Now.
sometimes we forget to go
sometimes we forget the land needs healing
the dead cannot be denied, nor should they
sometimes we believe by hating we will heal
sometimes we believe by fear we will over come
I cannot do this
I refuse to do this
I will go to every Auschwitz, every slave pit, every Hiroshima, Guantanamo, wounded knee, Normandy,
every Nanking every Tibet every Gaza strip
every lepers broken heart
I will not turn away
not for all the political correctness in the western world
and to all those who ask
all those who demand
all those who threaten
I’ve nothing to say –
‘cept fuck you and your cowardly way
See I was taught that democracy takes courage. The courage to allow the rights of the other. Not only their right to exist but their rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That it takes democratic courage to allow the other a voice, a choice, a privacy, an equality.
The belief that majority rules is erroneous with regards to true democracy. Otherwise everything depends on the personal belief of the many. This is only might makes right, this is not democracy. Democracy is the courage of all to allow the human and civil rights of all.
The question we should be asking people is – do you really want to live in a country where the your rights and the rights of others may justifiably be revoked every time the majority demographic shifts?
Today when I look at my country that’s what I see. Rather than the nurturing of courage, it seems to perpetuate the right to bully, the right to instill fear, the right to make money at all costs, the right of might – with no regard for the amount of misery, tragedy, or instability it causes its own citizens or the rest of world.
It has always taken extreme courage to be democratic. It still does.
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.
Boomerz – from Caribu & Sister Stones
ISBN: 9781905425907
Published by Lapwing Belfast
This is one I have had for ages. Snagged from my dads bookshelf when he was selling out of print items. It was published by Yale University Press. This copy is fifth edition C1967. As you can see it came from the library of Calvin Hosmer JR. In my opinion Calvin lived, and indeed may still be living, in a town with one of the coolest place names ever – Brave Boat Harbor! I think it is one of the main reasons I have not been able to part with it for over thirty years.
It is inscribed by C.HJ. with the note:
“This Vinland map
was found to be
a fake but the
book is still
good reading
CHJ”
Personally I would disagree. Once I read the inscription I was disinclined to enjoy the fore mentioned good read. Can’t help but wonder how the recipient felt getting a gift of a used book the subject of which was proved fake? Perhaps there is a clue in that my Dad picked it up at a rummage sale for .50 ? Anyway for some reason I still keep it. Well, it was from Brave Boat Harbor, that’s just irresistible isn’t it?
So the other day I picked this little gem off the shelf and discovered Robert Louis Stevenson – the poet. I have had this book for a while now maybe 10 – 15 years bought it some where in America for .25 cents. It has only two poems by RLS; Requiem and The Vagabond. I think they both show just how ballsy a poet he was. Today as I was putting this blog together Shelly posted on my face Book page about Tom Crean the Irish Sailor & Antarctic explorer. The inscription on Toms grave – Home is the sailor, home from sea. You can still drink at Toms Crean’s Pub ( he opened a pub once he retired from the sea) The last time I was there they pulled a very fine pint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_%28explorer%29
THE GOLDEN TREASURY
of
Songs and Lyrics
selected from the best songs and lyrical
poems in the English language
and arranged with notes by
FRANCIS T PALGRAVE
London
MACMILLAN 7 CO LTD
new York St martin’s Press
1959
Requiem
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me;
“Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Notice All the Silence That You’ve Left Behind
No matter how hard I wait
the rain doesn’t stop any sooner
no matter if I focus on streaming glass
or distant green as it meets the still bare tree line
no not even if I stare at the little pile of shit the neighbour’s dog left slowly steadily dissolving in the gravel
Couldn’t I just stand here all day?
Instead, get dressed
yoga later or not at all
There is a softness allowed by the absence of anxiety
a nonchalant free from worry over what to do
when after all there’s nothing –
Things will remind me, no matter what I choose
and tears a lot like rain seem never to stop
until they do and then they don’t again
~~~~~~~~~~
I go out, with the basket for wood
feed the fire started in the dark morning hours
ash and blackthorn limbs
and like the rain
and like the tears
that fire keeps my eyes busy
for a while
until some distraction
like my bladder
like my stomach
or the postman with some useless package
unable to fit the inadequate mail slot of my front door
moves me
onward
