the next 3 from As If The Rain… read by the poet PD Lyons~ Something in the Night, Lessons On Foreign Languages in a Reeperbahn Café, Once While I Was Away

As the events of 2020 put paid to my intention to promote this book via live readings etc. I have decided to simply read the book in order on short videos. I believe the work should be heard and hope to make that happen here. Thank you if you have for listening. cheers pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk.

Something in the Night, Lessons On Foreign Languages in a Reeperbahn Café, Once While I Was Away. erbacce-press Liverpool UK c2019 video c2021 pdlyons poet.

If you’d like a copy of the book contact me via email to arrange. inscribed limited editions 20.00euros regular postage incl. anywhere in the world. 15.00Euros if you’re lucky enough to live in Ireland.

good luck. bye!

note there are some sexual references here. no violence, or graphic descriptions

you can read them below but as the youtube folks say if you want the joy of watching yours truly read ’em you gotta go ~

 

 

 

 

• Something in the Night

                                                                                                                                   

back then when knowing the night was an obligation

I got to meet you

we had nothing to do but each other

we had no one else we wanted to bother with

 

I was working at a local gas station

 pump the gas, check the oil, fill the radiator, fill the tire

 only other things we could sell – cigarettes, maps and coca cola.

I have no idea what you did something textile?

Bobbins, threads, piece work, bonus

 

somehow, we had met and that was all that mattered.

we liked to drive around at night,

few beers, couple packs of smokes, FM radio.

didn’t go to bars much, drinking there cost more

besides we both had this inability to not piss people off.

 

last time we were in a bar?

this old Irish guy, the owner, liked you at first

gave you your third drink on the house

but when he was playing pool, money on the table

you kept grabbing the back of the cue just as he shot.

 

by the third time it wasn’t funny, except to you.

few of the regulars told me; Better get her out of here. Now! So, I did.

 

we stopped off in the middle of the intersection by St.  Joseph’s cemetery

smoking, talking, kissing – more than kissing.

never a soul, not even the cops came by to bother us.

we had some incredible luck when it came to it.

 

I told you what my favourite breakfast was.

so, you invited me one morning, your mother’s house,

eggs Benedict you made yourself just for me.

 

I met your little brother then.

he was 7 maybe 10. He asked if I ever went fishing?

sure, when I was your age my dad used to always take me.

must a said I’d take him sometime

cause about a week after we stopped seeing each other I get this phone call 

could we go? maybe tomorrow? you know fishing?

I don’t remember how but I told him no. It made me feel sad.

I knew what it was like to believe you were going fishing then not.

 

And you?  Even if you were around, I don’t think there’s anything here you wouldn’t have already known and forgotten long ago.

• Lessons on Foreign Languages in A Reeperbahn Café

                                                                                                                       

Trees or torture…

My breasts were made for children and your hands

Choices are limited by the boundaries of the playing surface

How do you know that’s not a table?

 We could meet in Ireland by the palm trees.

Everyone drinks Guinness and whiskey, everyone drinks Paddy

Even in the ancient holes of Greece, the big dig and who

wouldn’t give up school for the bones of Archimedes?

To find the way past childhood, finding the past of childhood,

the paths of childhood past the personal to the collective…

Who wouldn’t give up tomorrow for a chance to come into Pandora’s Box?

Well when I am god, I shall bless Pandora, bless Eve, bless all those who

turned away from paradise, instead followed the stars.

Why? Why everything? Why not something else?

Ignorance may be bliss but consciousness divine…

 

…but if I could meet you in Ireland by the palm trees

yes, even I would drink Paddy whiskey with you from the bones

of Pandora’s ass; and we could trace the historic exile of

our childhood to the music of Springsteen’s: Point

Blank, The Price You Pay, Ties that Bind, as it tins through

some battery cassette. So, roll up another cigarette and pass

the Pandora but first let me see your eyes,

 Let me lay my tongue on yours.

 Let us swallow some of each other’s spit,

like a Red Indian blood-brother ceremony and

yes, you can be Winnetou if you want to…

 

When I was in Greece I lived on dirt. No not even dirt but

sand – dust. The dust of hot sun and cruel fate, the dust of

ancient tombs split open like over-ripe fruit covered

everything with a resin crust. We were fond of bones and

murders, sacrifices, lesbians, our Spartan

swords and sleeping children. We hated columns and

Parthenons. Sweated ouzo and goat fat and when we farted

little black olives rolled down and out of our pant legs.

 

When I was in Europe I lived on sleep. I slept for days in

Wien, Vienna, Vienne, Vienna. Slept for Beethoven at his

tomb and at his little Platz by the statue near the

Shubert ring. I was frozen in the Maria Theresian Natural

History Museum – lost among stuffed and pickled corpses of every

 creature known to man.

In Hamburg, the whole city is made of sleep. Sleep like a

giant smog impregnated everything and every moment. Its

embryonic motion grown heavy in a damp heat, like breath on

a still winter night of North Sea drifting downward with

hunger, for those German girls, who with the slenderness of

a homosexual fantasy covered me in the slick semen of their

love. Mouths moaning with love, cunts hungry

with love, assholes a dream of love…

 

In the states I lived on flesh. The flesh of pigs.

 Flesh of Ronald McDonald. Catholic flesh of Christ, bloodless

white and sour. I lived with the flesh of dead dogs, aborted infants;

sucked juices from the fresh wounds of teenage girls down

in the darkness of their daddy’s garages. Dracula had nothing on me man.

I walked the ninety-degree heats of New York City streets.

Streets made of skin and muscle like some giant souvenir of Auschwitz.

 Tattoos sweating black ink and muggers.

Whenever I couldn’t buy anything to eat all I had to do was lick the street –

Meat Street USA. And when I could afford to bribe my way out to

the countryside? It was for a breath of fresh blood with a

little something still warm from its own body heat to chew on.

 

… But now we sit by the palm trees of Ireland

 our harps hung up to dry. Pandora’s ass so dry, is

like a sponge sucking up Irish whiskey the way a drowning

man, sucks sea. We don’t sleep any more. The only flesh we

eat is our own. You have met me here have taken the blood

of my wound into your own.

So, my dearest look at me; you have the saddest eyes I have ever known.

Do you remember the peace I stole from you in Hamburg years ago?

Now there is nothing to heal, nothing, no reason to

steal. So, roll up another cigarette. But first let me lay my tongue upon

yours, let my tongue sleep awhile in that sweet hole. Let

us see how long we can stay still like that and yes, you can be Winnetou if you want to.

 

for Cordula

 

Once While I Was Away

You might have come

Expecting awkward greeting won by

Philosophic well-planned answers to

What you thought my unasked questions were –

Accidental touch

Silent linger hands

Knowing prelude to a kiss

   All it would take to unclench my heart

   Inviting you in

   So, you’d have something to do for the afternoon

These Words by PD Lyons

 

Sligo 2020 Rosses Point photo by Shelly

These Words

by PD Lyons

from the tiredness of my bones
not syllables of warm water mouths
rather emanate rich with marrow silent sensations
hot cold
soft foetal
crescents of your ears
depth deeper than you know of your eyes
the vast rift of tears
your endless heart

alone sometimes in the dark
I have been a labour for you
silently aloud
likewise you should read
these words so unlike other words
each window through which invisible creatures
of what cannot be said climb

 

When I’m a Ghost I’ll Haunt the Beach w/ My Mother by pd lyons

Tide comes

Stronger now

Still myriad suns

Roll upon the silver breakers

 

Day like the tide

Has turned

Inevitable in it’s

Priceless way

 

But for now lingering

A little longer

Simply sitting in the sun

Breathing by the sea –

Not waiting for anyone

 

When I’m a ghost

I’ll haunt the beach

With my mother

 

The little bay

Where she’d sometimes stand

Looking out over the Atlantic

Imagining

 

I’d tell her its OK

Anyone with that many kids

Would imagine

 

I’d tell her

Everyone’s doing well

Everything worked out pretty much OK

 

The we’d stand

Look out over the sea

Imagining

Forever

 

 

Lobster Bisque by pd lyons

we were coming back from somewhere. maybe just poking along the coast. anyway it was our last stop before heading back. we walked on the small bit of sand and onto the breakwater, it was late afternoon the bright day dimming. we decided to check out the menu at the Madison Inn there. maybe get a little something to take the cold off. the restaurant was up stairs and even though it was late autumn she wanted to sit out on the veranda. so we did. I went down got more coats from the car and we sat there in the Adirondack kinda lounge chairs, coats tucked around us like blankets, watching the Atlantic do amazing things with the sky and saying small things I cannot not now remember. We ordered lobster bisque. I had never had lobster bisque before. She tasted hers and said whoa this is the best fucking lobster bisque ever. And it was.

 

Marshland Restaurant, by pd Lyons

 

 

Marshland Restaurant

just what I wanted
some place to remind me to home
because I was tired from walking the Atlantic
alone in the rain.
the potatoes had lumps,
string beans still had strings
and the coffee?

just as if I had re-heated it myself
left over from this morning

 

 

 

Once upon a time I was lucky enough to spend a few weeks in a little cape cod cottage across the street from the beach in East Sandwich – and totally alone! Late autumn storms, gales sung through the walls and lifted the ceiling panels. I had an old army field jacket and a good wool cap fit under the hood – so every day walked for miles then back to write – no tv no phone and on occasion drove into town to find company at the marshland. It was back in the day when Cape Cod  “closed” for the off season.

canada, a poem by pd lyons

 

 

was living in cape Breton for a few winters. had a dalmatian dog named max. we brought him over from Ireland with us. he had 125 acres of woodland for a back yard and the Atlantic ocean for the front. those days had a canon AE something or other so film photos and they’re in a box somewhere…

originally published by corner club press issue 3 vol 1 July 2011   http://thecornerclubpress.weebly.com/

 

 

Canada

Where I could step out into the night
Smoke with the stars
Hear an ocean just beyond the pines
And something’d draw the
Dog off barking
Into a pitch black forest where really anything could be
When all I wanted was a sparkling solitude of Orion
But you know when the s.o.b. came back
All proud of himself waging his tail –
All I could say was
Good boy – Good boy

 

 

and four from galway bay

galway

 

 

sea life dance by pd lyons

 

titanic, belfast. … and rust to rust (part2)

 

the rectangle shape on the pole that lays across the cargo cranes would have been the entrance the lookouts took to climb up to their station.

Photos taken  at the titanic Belfast exhibits, original photo i believe are from Ballard’s exploration.