April 14-15-16 part 3
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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
!
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.
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.
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.
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
!
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.
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.
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
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
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 .
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
!
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.
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.
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.
When I’m gone
Who will know the feel of wooden handles held in bare hands
Measure the post hole deep enough below the frost line
Enjoy the scent of sweaty horses
The rain of walking home in the dark
Night rainbows
TV static
Driving 13 hours due west
Soft pack Marlboros Full moon rearview One van Morrison cassette
T’il dawn
Just to meet someone hardly known for breakfast
BISCUTS & GRAVY ~ 2.25
What’s grits? a quarter
Cuppa Coffee? a dollar
.
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.
Originally published by Subterranean Blue Poetry this was part of the winning entriy for the erbacce poetry prize 2019. I once worked in a Jungian residential treatment ctr. in Litchfield Ct. Robin worked there too as did Eva who got lost with me once in a dream of deep winters
That morning we walked into the snow
Across old farm lands
Over walls of field stone
The flakes large steady
Making it hard to see anything but them.
We’d stumble.
We’d fall.
Each of us
Quick to help the other.
Laugh sometimes,
Kiss sometimes.
Push ourselves forward.
Always forward.
semi shelter of thin woods,
some nameless river,
steepening ridge.
swirls of ever deepening ever dancing
mesmerised not bothering to melt snow
Clung
Like new eyelashes,
Like soft old useless flannel,
Like wishes form a childhood
Unable to be blown away
Or ever to come true.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The annual erbacce-prize for poetry is open from January 1st to May 1st every year. It is entirely FREE to enter thus it attracts top quality poets world-wide… in 2019 we had close to eight thousand entries and all were judged ‘blind’. P D Lyons was the outright winner! Below is the book we produced for him… it is sheer quality poetry, the whole book encompasses a simplicity coupled with deep insight; a truly beautiful collection which reveals more each time it is re-opened… (perfect-bound: 112 pages)
http://erbacce-press.webeden.co.uk/p-d-lyons/4586525519