21.3.23. Morning Coffee Notes by PD Lyons

On todays tray:

stories, energy, equanimity, democracy, boomers, oppression, religion , and coffee.

21 3 23

 

I have often told my self stories

Then believed them to be true simply because I was the one who told them

These have been the cause of all my suffering

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

There is energy. There is us needing to identify these energies. To categorise, conceptualise, judge. The defining of energies makes us feel solid, in control. That’s why joy, peace, kindness usually seen as strength. Not like anger or hatred, these give us a delusion of being solid, strong. These mask our fear of not knowing who or what we might really be. Through them we pretend to know what we are – firm solid strong hero of our own story.

There is energy.

It needs no identification

In order to be

But it takes a bit of courage

To let go of the pretence of being solid.

 

Reading life like poetry expands your world

 

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

 

EQUINIMITY = LIBERATION

 

There is energy.

Not

There is energy that is good

There is energy that is bad.

 

There are types

Tired energy

Joyous

Angry

Peaceful

Etc

Or

There is energy

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

 

Whatever tells you

Don’t look

Don’t care

Don’t question

Don’t learn

Don’t love

Don’t live

That isn’t democracy or religion,

That’s oppression.

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

True Democracy

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 instil 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.

by PD Lyons

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

 

It is much easier to philosophise about pain

While it’s not active

.

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

5.3.23 morning coffee notes

On today’s menu

Pain, Hawks, Sea shore, joy, equanimity, writing poetry again, title piece from: my favourite dreams are of the sea

At first it was a bit sporadic but eventually

The lapse between pain and non-opposing

Grew shorter

Instead of zing-fuck

It became zing-oh you again

Managing  what is VS seeking comfort

~~~~

This mornings

Red hawk

Unfurls herself

Slowly into flight

Funny how something so big

Remains unnoticed until in motion.

 ~~~

 Where do they happen

Where do they go

Where do they come from

With Within Without – “Me”

Don’t know Don’t want Don’t need

Thoughts.

~~~~~

Mercy Plea

If I listen

I’d hear my own heart

A weakness which would put me vulnerable

To every heartless thing I’ve done

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

I don’t know where it comes from

This turbulent impatience

 

Attachment to results

A wish that my writing made a “difference”

That people found it got it responded to it.

 

Or is it something else

An exhaustive ache pain

Redundant days after days

Seeming peaceful but inherently futile.

 

I’m where it comes from

Me

What do I do about that?

Old man blues what can you do?

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

Equanimity key

Resolution for suffering

 Enabler of movement instead of entrenched rigidity

 Breathe in What Is

Exhale movements with What Is.

Equanimity free from emotional reactions activity is infused with wisdom

~~~~~~~~~~~

Today for the first time in forever I wrote. Working some poems from my manuscript My Favourite Dreams Are of the Sea. I wasn’t getting it ready to send out, I’ve no one to send it to. I just found myself sitting with it. Started with a basic full word do edit and then began to read and work them. Getting to the first three. The changes presented themselves effortlessly. I had no doubt over every deleted word, lines even stanza each brought out the natural shine of the piece. It was a nice steady enjoyment of writing poetry again.  Left me looking forward to tomorrows session and able to allow myself that luxury.

So here’s the title piece ~

 

My Favourite Dreams Are of the Sea

 

Sky so bright it can’t be looked at

water dark and deep

the sky bends down in envy

 I am alone in this wide-open ocean

absent from any shore line

knowing as I lie back she will not let me fall.

 

 Barefoot playing on the beach sand castles built tall as my self

and now with my pail make a way so mermaids who have been watching

 can come up for a visit without leaving their home behind.

 

My mother meets me by the creek once marked the boundary of our beach walks

we are walking back I am telling her everyone is doing pretty well.

she is pointing out to where diamonds of the waves briefly meet the sky.

 

My cousins brother-in-law brings us to the breakwater to fish. I’ve smoked all my cigarettes and he, the brother-in-law, is generous supplying me from his own. They get bored want to go down to the beach side to swim. I don’t want to, So I stay smoking someone else’s cigarettes fishing for nothing keeping an eye on the gear. Nearby there’s woman on a huge flat chunk of granite. She has two children with her. They are playing together with bits of sea weed. She lays there luxuriant in the sun sounds of the waves and the laughter of her children.

 

Walking on the beach with a girl I know from school. tide high and slack.

we are finding things in the sand noting as we go strips of green weeds, bits of sea glass, bleached bones of small creatures skulls of small crabs. Sometimes there are these pink stones. I pick them up put them into the pockets of my cut-off jeans. She picks them up as well and even though she has pockets on her cut-offs she is rather throwing them out into the sea. I give it a go but mine fall short. They’re nowhere near the long effortless arcs of her own. So instead, I give all mine to her and watch. We continue on in that way. Me picking up small pink stones handing them to her so we can enjoy the long grace of her connections with the sea.

25.2.23 coffee morning notes

Some mornings are a long time coming

You begin to count on them and then to remind you not to take then for granted they become elusive. Taunting little false dawns, strange sounds, sensitive bladder, dry cough. Eventually they get here. Well at least that’s what happened today. Guess there are no guarantees though. Except for this,

If there is a morning soon there will be coffee. 

 

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

 

At some point I realised

There is a place

One can go with pain

That is not oppositional

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

So not only can you give life

You can bleed without dying

amazing

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

 

Don’t forget

Spiders want to live too

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

 

You Might Look To Remember Me

Walking the maple groves

When spring causes swift the sap to rise

The crisp hard frost early in the morning

When the hunting’s best

An old chair strategically placed in the living room.

Remote nearby

Joy and tears of my children and their children

Steadfast loyalty of my loving wife

Wherever & whenever comrades old and new should gather

The dogs barking at some random things.

Yet able to restrain themselves enough to wait patiently for their dinner.

Roll of waves playing guitar with the sunlight.

Old fishing boats at the end of a working day.

Sure, these and so many places you might look

Even occasionally catch a glimpse

Though through the years more and more elusive these might be.

But I can tell you this for sure no matter what.

As long as you have room in your heart.

That’s exactly where you’ll always find me.

Morning Coffee Notes 24.2.23 ~

On todays menu ~ Spring, Horseshoe Crab, Body/brain Memory According to Horses, This Mornings Repetition and of course  COFFEE!

Empty bird feeder

Dappled sunlight

Budding trees

I get to notice

Spring

 Again

 ~

 

 

Horseshoe Crabs

 

I think about horseshoe crabs, when child, discovering them.

My friend telling me they were dangerous because the ridge along their sone and tail would cut your foot. And they were poisonous too!

Notwithstanding I forum them fascinating. Would have called them alien but I didn’t have that word you. Extra-terrestrial creatures you know.

Later I heard that they were a creature that had silver blood and were used to discover way to treat leprosy. There were definitely a colour of unseen worlds. Upside down there was bits of orange a more familiar thing. sometimes we’d find small little ones not as intimidating as the adults which were about a foot or so wide. Besides all the little one we ever found were dead. Bleach whitish by the sun, shells thinner than a potato chip.

 Any way I don’t know how much of what I believed as a kid is true. Don’t want to know enough of my childhood has been disproven. So I’m keeping this for my childhood and my friends as if that would keep us walking along the big giant oceans sharing stories and the adventure of comradery.

The Body/Brain memory according to horses.

Has its own memory. Things a brain might rather not know. The body remembers and will act automatic to prevent, or at least try to prevent a reoccurrence of such things.

 I remember getting busted up by a horse. First time thrown, first time in hospital, first broken bone, first collapsed lung a long list of things. All firsts that I wished were nevers.

So after I was discharged from hospital I realised I need a cane, There was no medical reason, But I found whenever I was walking around in public and people got to close I’d flinch and it’d hurt. They weren’t really too close but according to the body’s memory they certainly were, So I carried a wooden cane. Not to menace folk but people generally give a wider berth to a person with a cane.

 

The brain too has its own memories. Maybe sometimes it decides the best way to manipulate what’s happened is to go full throttle out there. To prove to itself and the body too that though a thing happened once doesn’t always mean it will happen again’ Kind of rushing away from what the body remembers and mind does not wish to acknowledge. Apart of something that wants to prove something to its/my self?

So anyway that’s the reason I got back on the horse so to speak. Never rode that other one again. A difference between courage and stupid?

And so that was enough for firsts although my second time in hospital was from being kicked by a horse. That was the first time I lost a spleen and at least I know that can never happen again. 

 “Your spleen looks like smithereens’.” said the surgeon. Needed to be quoted somewhere don’t you think? They wanted to cut my chaps off. That of course did not happen. But that’s another story.

 

This Mornings Repetition

 

If I let these days

Gentle lie falling fallen leaves

Like green leaves

Wind whisper rain through poplar

 How can any one of them be bad?

This is my privilege

To be kind is my honour

These are my vows

Today tonight tomorrow

 To you to me to this whole world.

 

(Repeat daily)

Morning coffee notes 22.2.23

22.2.23

 

She told me she was going out to lunch with her friend. Even asked if I wanted to come along. I was busy at the typewriter, so I said maybe next time.

  Came back, told me she’d seen a lawyer and wanted a divorce. I was so angry I just said Fine. Packed a back, left.

 A while after, once it was settled I was picking up the rest of my stuff.

She asked me Why?

What?

Why didn’t you fight for me, for our marriage.

I don’t remember what I said but I wasn’t angry anymore.

 

~

How should I treat pain?

With kindness.

When I can.

No matter how many years it takes.

~

February sun dances

Crisp morning across my fingers

Each breath catches wonder

Each step keeps me close

 

~

In fact, we don’t really see anything. We perceive reflections of light. And of the light spectrum we only perceive partially. Our eyes are limited. So, what we can’t “see” we decide does not exist. Or we decide it might exist according to our own impositions. Either way, all the while our vision of reality is based on what we don’t really see much like that which our eyes cannot perceive anyway.

Why are we crazy?

 

~

Somethings I’ve known Come back to me

Meandering horses, stray dog, orange cat

A smile you had when you were three

grass is always greener – even if its a driveway

~

 

April 14-15-16 part 3 How Big is the Heart of a Child ~

 

April 14-15-16 part 3

 

Muffins and earl grey at Beth’s Special Teas. Cape Cod sunny Sunday wind pure fresh walk the little strip East Sandwich shops, still missing the Herb Shop but our gratitude is high for the tea Shop haven from all manner of Dunkin Dodo swill. Hot chocolate for the child. What to do with the last few hours before the drive back to Connecticut? Paradise Liquor for a 1.75 litre bottle of Bombay for 31.00. Sam’s fish shop on the canal bag of shelled scallops large as your tongue. My eleven year old daughter fascinated by the lobster tank. Can we get one dad? Can we? No. Why not? Cause I don’t want to kill one do you? No. Well then what’s the point of getting one? We could let him go. Now my daughter wants to do a Buddha thing and save this creatures life and I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to talk her out of this do I? She gives me that look, the crux look, the scan of a child reading every inch of my body, verbal and invisible language, searching for the parental cue. Is this an acceptable idea, is it not? Remember whatever you do will affect me for the rest of my life. I stall and say well you’ll have to use your own money. She says OK but its in the car. And I must  surrender with, that’s alright give it to me when we get back. So she picks out Lucky the Lobster. Out to the Jeep fish out a pair of work gloves from the back, use the Gerber to cut the bands from his claws and we all three walk over to the edge and I toss him into the canal. She can see him swimming – he’s OK! Just before we drive off seat belts belted everyone ready small fist full of single dollar bills reaches over the seat – here dad. And I think how big is the heart of a child. And I take the bills stuff them into my shirt pocket and say thank you.

 

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…

 

Thanks for spending time . 

cheers.

good luck

bye

!

 

• 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.

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…

Thanks for spending time . Why not consider subscribing on YouTube?

cheers.

good luck

bye

!

 

• 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.

Leaving This House, by pd lyons

Leaving This House

Through leopard clouds the day’s sunlit fingers open,
soft afternoon, occasional whispers between finches
knowing my need for such kindness
even crows come quietly…

What is it of memory and seasons?
What does this shift to autumn bring me?
Why remember what I do? Forget what I forget?

A bed of rolled up cotton,
sun dried white sheets against pale skin,
wishing it was some hangover
so wind chimes could sound beautiful again,
sunlight be inviting and coffee all the medicine you’d need.

I know of this other time when drowsy dancing on sweet wine
we sank beneath that wind chime tree
surrendered on the beating earth
something more than blood and bones,
a tender lightening wove between us
our own muscles able to change the world.

Now such things can not be spoke of.
Distorted by sick eyes they’d only deepen your
regrets, as if what was could ever not be.

If you responded to preaching I’d simply preach.
Instead I must lure you by disguise –

Coffee from thin sharp equatorial mountains,
audibly stirred blue stone mug.
Herbs infused with full ripe summers.
Small secret woodland tinctures.
Ointments rich in years of flowers.
Oils soaked in sunlight, stored in our own damp cellar
warmed as needed over an open flame.

Somewhere past all anger, melted only by tears, yield the ways of memory.

 

 

#Big Lorraine, by PD Lyons – a ghost poem

 

Big Lorraine

 

 

I dreamed my love had found me
my children gathered too
put down all their weapons
eased their hearts cried their fill
then they began to play
like they did when they were young
and when I woke I’d forgotten
all my dreaming days were done.

I went down to make the coffee
sat by the open window
ran my fingers through my hair
thought I heard somebody talkin’
voices carry on the air
birds out over the ocean
rising silver like a prayer

 

 

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

Big Lorraine is in Cape Breton Nova Scotia, Canada. In one of those vast woodland logics of Cape Breton, Big Lorraine is much smaller a town than Little Lorraine is. In fact I don’t think there’s more than a house or two visible from the highway.  Maybe it was different back in the day? Anyway Cape Breton is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived in.  There are many ghosts along the rugged coast and through out the highlands where sometimes they don’t even get a town left standing for them. So this is a ghost poem and it is obviously for Big Lorraine.

I’d say this was written in 2003 or maybe 4. A version appears in Caribu & Sister Stones : Selected Poems by PD Lyons, selected by Deirdre Kearney, Published by Lapwing, Belfast, 2009. ISBN 978-1-905425-90-7 .