1st draft Sunday Morning in the City of Pandemica ~ by P D Lyons

written on first time back in Dublin since Feb (pandemic protocols initiated in March) on a early Sunday morning in September as i stood out from the hotel. now as of this last week of September the city is once again on restrictions.

PS for those who might not know – the Luas mentioned in the piece is a public transport akin to an above ground subway.

 

 

Here is the print ~

Sunday Morning early in the City of Pandemica

   First of all

It was a Sunday morning

In the city early

   Sunday morning early

In the city of Pandemica

   Grey Sunday early on the sidewalks of the city of Pandemica

Cool collage

Damp cool collage breezes empty streets

Unmasked sounds

Cellophane, gull,s fop fop fop

 soft shoe vague woman eyes on her own toes walks by

   What’s the time? hey buddy? hey ya got the time?

A voice of an old fella didn’t even notice at first

Too busy in my own head in my own notebook

Hey ya got any cigarette papers?

All I could say to the only one who noticed me was, No

   They took my phone and all the photos of my kids

Cost me 15 euros to get them printed

Sorry but I need a shower, so I won’t get too close

But they keep sending me down to the quays and all they want to do down there is fight

I’m 47 and I don’t want to fight any more  you know?

Any way got to go.  Good luck. God bless.by

And he got onto the Luas

 

You might love the blue sky

And I the shapes clouds make

So maybe we remember

Without clouds the sky would be alone

Without sky the clouds have no home

Sometimes it takes a mask to reveal ourselves

 

Dublin 2020

ruff from 2011 in eight bits, by pd Lyons

So because the day is bright and dancing outside my window I am most lazy regarding today’s blog so forewarned be best armed – what follows? 2 photos and a newishly  found ruff unpolished as if in amber piece.

’til next time

pd Lyons has left the building

edinborough scotland

 

 

25.3.11

today out on the veranda of all gone away youth whiskered timber dreams woke another coffee

1
you wouldn’t have to wait for anything to boot up
turn on or upload you could just sit down
bang away royal keys upon a cotton rag of water marked paper

you wouldn’t have to settle for crap wine, Bordeaux châteaux
would be easily accessible even to a low level pot dealer

you could get a soft pack of Marlboro that tasted good –

better than the hard pack in the days before anyone even thought of lights

the rent was 180 for five big rooms a laundry room full bath including heat and utilities

you could sit on the second floor back porch blow a joint in broad daylight watch some old ginger tom prowl around some inner city orange rose bush while the most beautiful girl you thought you’d ever know sat on your lap your hands finding ways to make her melt underneath her long gypsy soul skirt.

2.

starbuck girls go by to boys that somehow remind you to your own self except instead of love they sell schemes and plans and how to maximize income and output and the most beautiful girl in the place gives her precious attention to someone who won’t even make her come, too busy trying to sell her something that she won’t ever need on her death bed.

3.

don’t know what the reasons for the way we are is
don’t know how we got to be so far away from where we were
but there’s a time a place for everything
there’s a never ending ever changing way of everything
so they say and who are they for us to disbelieve when we can see it in our selves
we cross the street together out of step

we walk up stairs without noticing our own eyes
we can’t get on because all we want is something we remember way back there

4.

so much can happen when we live long enough
so many thing s we thought were no possible could have come to pass
but not believing in the future
did we not live grandly in the past?

my mother wanted things for me I did not believe in
my father wanted me to somehow not be a worry
my regret is only that being so inarticulate I could not explain
how I could love them but not want to ever become them

5.
cannot manage this consistency too well
I know your chimes of freedom flashing
I am the outlaw child of all these blue collar working class heroes
I am not them but am eternally grateful to them
all they gave of their own unrequited youth so that I could be the rebel born
and I will not forget you and I will not neglect you
and I will raise your soft n hidden heart to my own pure unbridled lips
my kisses unconcerned with the blood of my mother and my father
I will cherish your suffering transformation into peace.

6.
whatever went winkingly down the stairs clinkily
open and wondering wounded and proud
never more thinkingly would she be drinkingly
out on the balcony summers no more

hearts could be full of love cause the most damaging cuttingly cursingly no matter how true could never be you

7.
how many times have I thought to see you there?
after all these years – damn near 40
don’t I still imagine I come round the wooded path way bend
and by that pond somehow you’re there

ghosts haunt the places that the living know
it has nothing g to do with where they died
ghosts haunt this place where I grew up
where I first saw you naked
and you broke my heart open before I even knew I’d love you

I know I won’t ever see you now
but if promises can be made to ghosts
then someday soon I’ll meet you here again
golden apples silver apples
pine needles on a summer day patch of grass back by the old turtle pond

8.

today I do not want backward

I know there is no such thing as then or later
and now’s so fleeting it hardly exists

I know the moon
calls me on the road of no stone no sand no steps

Paris France

 

I would abandon all other cities for this… poetry & photography by pd lyons

nyc pdlyons

 

I would abandon all other cities for this…

To wake from sleep with little angels

Cross weeping waters 

Opiate lilies

Rolled tobacco porcelain skin

We would talk

 I would give out money, paper money for free

 Answer, because you are sitting on the streets I was born into this world on.

 

I would pass from them like loose wrappers

cobbled stone behind lost mythologies, strangers foreign even to my self

But I could if I want sift sea salt stolen dreams

camera fantastic songs

 long meandering trails to and from the stars siren spiralling

 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 nod noddy nod.

Soft we would talk knowing no remedy for tomorrow only respite from the past.

rest your head on my shoulder,

safe from all  clatter drift,

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

 

I’d tell you stories of cities abandoned long ago

Where warmth was free

Where angels had names

Where heroes would rescue even you.

I would sleep without being asleep,

  your head on my shoulder

I would not move when disentangled from my arms

you pooch my pockets for something worth taking, cash

  let you have it going,

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.

 

sometimes I will find quiet even in the day light

sometimes I will find a way warm into the night

by myself again

there in only gentle ghosts I blend

 my new skin, my confident sway

a sweetness beyond graves

among stars.

 

nyc pdlyons

 

nyc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

the ghost mother by pd lyons

the ghost mother

disappeared

as if each son

spontaneous

generated

upon this dominated land

 

sticks of war

lures of porno

century

after century

 

yet still there are some

knowing they are the mothers sons

dare to say –

i love you

artist unknown/pdlyons photo

 

paris 2016/ pdlyons photo

 

 

Lake Garda / Riva del Garda #lakegarda

pd lyons pix 11/2021

Not What the Poem Means & Without Sorrow There Cannot Be Kindness by PD Lyons (with pics)

not what the poem means

but how

how it makes you feel think react

when you bring your self to it

*

the tapestry is not thread by thread examined

but rather thread by thread combined~

if you see each thread you miss the tapestry

*

 study each brush stroke you miss the art work

forest for the trees ~

take it all in

take a big swig

not to figure it out 

but

to see what happens.

*

where are you singing

where are you dancing

tonite open spaces of my heart

in memory together and apart

children take us by the hand

sun across some foreign shore

where life is only looking back

trading places with the dark

wisdom drawn like silver

without sticks without books without roots

unspeakable nite this time

I will not medicate I will not dogma

I will wide open in the dark.

Without sorrow there cannot be kindness.

 

photo by shelly 2019

question

did we rise from earth or fall from heaven

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

The Practise – to reduce fear

   We use thoughts to protect ourselves from what we don’t know. As there is so much we don’t know we become steadily on the defense, trying to anticipate or predict all aspects of a situation. I can’t know you because I am trying to predict you. To make sense of what I don’t know by guessing. At best I will only create confusion. But this adds to my own existing fear ( of being wrong, of not being in control) thus furthering my need to anticipate, to be right, to be strong. What if instead I allowed you, your own self expression, and then…?

   Today –

May I create the courage to allow others space to express themselves. To allow the whole world to express themselves.

 

   

 

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