the king in question was adversarial towards Patrick and the christian ways. he was steadfast to the old religion. many years later there was a drive to get a new statute of st. patrick built up on the hill of tara, the original seat of the high kings of ireland. there was a request for poetry which would be included in a publication to be sold as generating revenue. not being overly christian and wondering why the hill of tara should have a statue of partick – i wrote an submitted this poem, which was accepted by the organization. the book was never published because there was some benefactor(s) who donated all the cash needed. later i sent it over to the Ides Of March people and the chose to publish it.
Sometimes there’s nothing to be said or can be said? I realised today I had fallen out of love with words. Therefore, with writing/poetry. Had actually for some time now verbalised how words are the enemy, the limitation of poetry. I have, for years now when making notes the bare bones of poems by hand scribbled as if wanting to get it over with. This morning reading about Rosemary Daniell on FB, her work and her life her poems this epiphany came. And so still scribbling I’m wondering how does one return to a place of love.
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.
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.
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?
The Song of the Wandering Aengus by WB Yeats & Somewhere Still by PD Lyons
The Song of the Wandering Aengus by WB Yeats from Eveeryman’s Poetry, J.M. Dent, Orien Publishing. London 1998 Somewhere Still by PD Lyons from When You Worship Swans No Longer Limited Edition, Supported by Westmeath County Arts, 2017
.Noun. 1. Aengus – Celtic god of love and beauty; patron deity of young men and women. Angus, Angus Og, Oengus.
SOMEWHERE STILL by PD Lyons
Somewhere there is still a place, you sitting in the sun, concrete porch paving slabs, Cape Cod Grey picnic table, small summer savages running jumping clinging – immune bare feet impervious to sun. Skin frosted with salt, lotions, cake icing.
Somewhere children still take your hand, invite you to cross the street walk with them down to the beach, taking them sometimes instead to lunch…
Long-time companions, comforts of old age, afternoon naps, books, TV, mail order catalogues, big band music and too those ever-dangerous memories – love, marriage, a hole never in twenty-three years has time healed.
Somewhere she still takes you by the hand. Ohs your name laughs into the open window, Fifty-five Chevy, summer bright chrome. So close to flying great American V8 highways up through the Canadian border dwindling into heavy Nova Scotia sands.
There has never been an ocean too cold for her to swim in. Long after your retreat to safety – Flamingo towels, Knickerbocker beer, USMC Zippo, Old Gold cigarette spiral prayers. Gratitude at last. Unable to fathom any reason to feel bad about surviving.
Deep breath wonderful (not a god damn palm tree in sight). Watch that woman of the sea; only wish there would never have to be a time to leave.
Later she gets tipsy; acquiescing when the waiter offers to sweeten her drink no knowing here to sweeten means more liquor. Out on the dance floor, hold each other tight as you want because she’s your wife now and you always liked the Mills Brothers.
Sometime after midnight, small cedar room, Stuart tartan blankets, crisp white sheets. Strange night sounds traipsing gingham curtains. As if tiny fingers, she ohs your name. Answer back with words you never knew before.
This spring by the sea your little house will not find you. Gone now perhaps to wander just like W.B. said –
Glimmering girl once more beside you and pluck
Till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
(For: D.R.L. – with regards to W.B. Yeats, his favourite poet.)
