When I Lived on West Main from As If The Rain Fell In Ordinary Time by PD Lyons

Another sample from the 2019 erbacce press international poetry prize winning collection by P D Lyons.

This one does what it says on the tin so to speak. I did live on West Main Street in Waterbury Ct. for a while. There really was a great Dane, a parrot, a park, a toy shop and sugar in the gas tank.

When I lived on West Main

When I lived on west main street
Third floor Victorian
Short walk for the liquor store past a little unnamed park
Not too far from downtown

Landlords’ cousins on the first floor
Stole my unemployment checks
Put sugar in the gas tank
And I don’t know why

We had a Great Dane, brindle dog
Got a cut on the end of his tail
And no matter what we did
He’d wag the bandage off.
Going up and down the stairs, hit the railings
Drops of blood splatter
As if his name was Jackson.

We bought a parrot
Called him Caesar
Filled the living room with plants
And let him fly around.

Got oil lamps to save on electricity.
Tall hurricane lamps,
Scented oil glowed in every room.
Tall well screened windows let the sky in.
Wood floors creaked waltzed all night by ghosts.

I went to work in a toy shop.
I was happy about the baby.
Still painted. Still wrote every day.
Still knew who we were.

It was the place where I’d smoke
As much as I wanted up into the middle of the night,
In that rocking chair your grandmother used to own.
Weight of endless summers in the dark.
Out over the roof tops, streaming lights, distant highways

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________-

I do have a few of these limited to 50 editions numbered and signed. email for availability and further details. Basically 20.00 euros gets it posted world wide.

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

Grandview Ave. from As If the Rain Fell In Ordinary Time by ~ P.D. Lyons

This was written in 2011. We were back for a few years in my hometown area of Waterbury Ct.  We’d drive back and forth  on Grandview Ave. Same time five days a week. Many times we’d see the same people walking same time everyday.

 

 

Grandview Avenue

 

We were walking

Hand in hand

Up the hill

In the rain

You had your bright red scarf

Wrapped around your head

Traffic swished

Lights on

Wipers squelching

We didn’t know what the day would bring

But I turned my face up to the sky

Trusting my own two feet and you to guide me

______________________________________________________

 

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

When I Lived on West Main from As If The Rain Fell In Ordinary Time by PD Lyons

Another sample from the 2019 erbacce press international poetry prize winning collection by P D Lyons.

This one does what it says on the tin so to speak. I did live on West Main Street in Waterbury Ct. for a while. There really was a great Dane, a parrot, a park, a toy shop and sugar in the gas tank.

 

 

When I lived on West Main

When I lived on west main street
Third floor Victorian
Short walk for the liquor store past a little unnamed park
Not too far from downtown

Landlords’ cousins on the first floor
Stole my unemployment checks
Put sugar in the gas tank
And I don’t know why

We had a Great Dane, brindle dog
Got a cut on the end of his tail
And no matter what we did
He’d wag the bandage off.
Going up and down the stairs, hit the railings
Drops of blood splatter
As if his name was Jackson.

We bought a parrot
Called him Caesar
Filled the living room with plants
And let him fly around.

Got oil lamps to save on electricity.
Tall hurricane lamps,
Scented oil glowed in every room.
Tall well screened widows let the sky in.
Wood floors creaked waltzed all night by ghosts.

I went to work in a toy shop.
I was happy about the baby.
Still painted. Still wrote every day.
Still knew who we were.

It was the place where I’d smoke
As much as I wanted up into the middle of the night,
In that rocking chair your grandmother used to own.
Weight of endless summers in the dark.
Out over the roof tops, streaming lights, distant highways

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________-

 

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

 

Grandview Ave. from As If the Rain Fell In Ordinary Time by ~ P.D. Lyons

This was written in 2011. We were back for a few years in my hometown area of Waterbury Ct.  We’d drive back and forth  on Grandview Ave. Same time five days a week. Many times we’d see the same people walking same time everyday.

 

 

Grandview Avenue

 

We were walking

Hand in hand

Up the hill

In the rain

You had your bright red scarf

Wrapped around your head

Traffic swished

Lights on

Wipers squelching

We didn’t know what the day would bring

But I turned my face up to the sky

Trusting my own two feet and you to guide me

______________________________________________________

 

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

I Didn’t Know words and photo by pd lyons

Got to go visit my daughter in cork city for her birthday shes attending uni there. train down from Dublin. So there was this woman…. and this is from the scribble notes….

 

as if never having seen

before

fingers such as these

elong both hands

explored tip by tip

by opposite

selected by a

pearl pink mouth

each taste slowly reminding her to herself

on this train

traveling alone

wherever she was going

i didn’t know

pdlyonsphoto

Somehow Coming out at Robin’s House… from As if the Rain Fell in ordinary Time by PD Lyons

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

Somehow Coming out at Robin’s House Where She Rescued Us with Coffee

 

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

 

About/ revised 23 August 2019

P D Lyons Winner of the 2019 erbacce-prize for poetry

Thank you to the judges and to Erbacce Crew. I am humbled and honored by this. Cheers Alan!

 P D Lyons Winner of the 2019 erbacce-prize for poetry

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: 112pages)

http://erbacce-press.webeden.co.uk/p-d-lyons/4586525519

 

Through the generous support of  Westmeath County Council a limited edition of 50 numbered and signed copies are available to purchase direct from the poet at €20.00 to include standard postage world wide.  Please click on the cover below to order via PayPal

PD Lyons

Born and raised in the USA. Travelling and living abroad since 1998. Now permanently residing in Ireland.

Received The Mattatuck College Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry.
Received Bachelor of Science with honours from Teikyo Post University Connecticut.

Two books of poetry Searches For Magic, and Caribu & Sister Stones: Selected Poems, have been published by Lapwing Press, Belfast. A third book, Myths Of Multiplicity, published by Erbacce press Liverpool as part of the 2014 Erbacce International Annual Prize was officially launched at the Westmeath County Library, Castlepollard Ireland on 9December 2014.

The work of PD Lyons has also appeared in many magazines and e-zine/blogs throughout the world. Including, The SHoP, Books Ireland, Irish American Post, Boyne Berries, Virtual Writer, Slipstream, West 47 Galway Arts. Recently selected to participate in Human Rights Consortium at the School of Advanced Study, University of London publication titled ‘In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights’.

Relevant websites:

‘In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights’.
In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights is an ambitious new publication aiming to bring together the fields of human rights research and literature in an innovative way. Selected from over 600 poems submitted by established and emerging poets, it provides a rare international insight into issues ranging from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Hola massacre and indigenous peoples’ rights to the current war in Syria.

http://www.sas.ac.uk/about-us/news/protest-new-poetry-anthology-explores-human-rights-and-social-justice

Myths of Multiplicity , all profits to benefit Erbacce writers co-op

http://www.erbacce-press.com/#/p-d-lyons/4586525519

Searches For Magic, and Caribu & Sister Stones,

http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/

 

PD Lyons Blog : https://pdlyons.wordpress.com/

As published by Inquietudes Literary Journal Spring 2018

Waltzing the Night

by PD Lyons

We’d hold ourselves like prayers between each other
bare feet, beating hearts
soft by each breath
full moon kisses
beyond any daylight horizon

 

it was one o’ clock this morning.
woke up no particular reason
didn’t even need to pee.
kitchen floor so cold I hurt for shoes
stood there adjusting to Frigidaire light
three bottles of beer on the second shelf
opened one by the window
chugged a salute to those long
hard rain halos

this is not the city I used to know with you

maybe I go for another
maybe it’ll help me sleep
probably not
these days once I’m up
even beer can’t touch me

deserted even by the small comfort of your ghost
still I sway as if somehow
we’re dancing

_________________________________________________________________

links to the full issue #1 and the Journal for submissions of your own work

 

https://inquietudeslitjournal.weebly.com/issue-1.html

 

issue_1_ardor_and_anguish

 

 

six poems by pd Lyons recently rejected by kettle blue review

Love Poem for R.B.

 

Today I heard on the radio that Richard Brautigan

Killed himself last fall.

Then some girl who was 17 in 1970 read his Love Poem.

She said that her then lover was a DJ on a college

Station and had dedicated a recording of the poem

To her, over the air, before he disappeared in a

Californian direction.

 

Anyway, I don’t know where I was.

Maybe I was washing clothes or asleep.

Maybe I was with Jenny or Eva or somebody.

I could a been drunk, or depressed

As if by some sort of intuition.

All I really know is that I’ll never know where I was

When he did it.

 

I wonder how he did it.

Maybe I should go down to the library look him

Up on the newspaper micro-film file?

Most likely I won’t though, the library is closed now

And I’m not sure I care that much anyway.

Besides it’s one of those details I’m sure will

Accidentally find its way to me.

 

It kinda pisses me off that he did it, I mean he

Wrote that Watermelon Sugar book, I read it years ago

When Mary gave it to me and I, 15 in 1970.

Watermelon Sugar and Mary my first lover go good together.

I don’t know about this suicide stuff though.

But maybe it’s nice not having to wake up alone with yourself

 

When you just don’t want to any more.

 

6/6/85

 

 

the sea made her way

 

 

sneaking up river

daring an overland short cut

crossed the lake

a hitched ride over the high land

where the old man sat

back against white stucco

smoking a Cuban cigar

 

right away she began;

whispered

rolling waves

sounds of silver birds

stars like diamonds

pure black

as if travelling among them there would never be another horizon

 

behind his eyes the old man smiled

o ribbons of smoke

barely audible ahh

 

at which she paused

looked

saw

him as he now was

and knew all she could do was to return from whence she came

never to kiss his pale grey eyes again

 

She Would

 

turn the armadillo

tickle his stomach with her tongue

 

black beetle tears swell

June bugs high heel snaps

crickets rip trying on new clothes

caterpillars hum dull dreams of a sex life

 

through irises and junipers

these she breaths

 

on her toes

sneakers let the ballet

peer out with wonder

along these New Haven streets

amid this morning

slipping into the haze

 

who is it

whispered water lily secrets

when your mornings got too heavy?

 

leaving the Stars behind

called you flower by moonlight

called you cypress by spring

watched you from the evening change

grey misty morning across the spider down day

 

the old man I have sat with

 

the old man I have sat with

anarchist veteran

wars wound down across an age of cigarettes

jokes spun in and out upon the swirl of pastis and water

croissants and coffee through to charcuterie

against the warm summer stones of Montesquieu

old man and me, our laughter.

to not ever be forgotten,

our fear.

 

 

Mogambo

 

in the back yards of the moon

mountains ever silk with smoke

a cigarette a champagne

a dress for dinner

as if we would ever

be back

the only true things

ghosts unable to sleep

unable to abide this weight of age and flesh

 

princesses and big cats

a woman afraid of her own jungle

hunter of the caged

a man afraid of mortality

how could our hungers meet?

how could our true nature reveal,

those ghosts we fear so much

are all the spirit we could have been.

all we traded away so cheap.

 

in the obligations of our evenings

in the entitlement of our heritage

sweat black the spear singers

sweat black the towel holders

as if the pale god held sway

without the guns of our own steel,

without the cripple nature of our own fears

we could never make our way a way

 

Bigger Than the Sky If a Star Was Your Eye

 

Without sadness there can be no kindness.

Depression while it may be unkind

Is not a kind of sadness.

 

Someday children learn:

Daddies don’t know everything

Daddies aren’t always there

Daddies cannot protect in an omnipotent way

And on top of that neither can mommy.

Not even if we are believed to be gods.

 

I have lived in houses of the dead.

Those who died before my age

Those who lived to be a hundred a hundred years ago.

Someday these stairs I sweep will still be here

And I will not be anywhere.

Someday all those I ever knew and who knew me,

No matter how intimately; will be no more.

Not even forgotten because there will be none

Whoever even knew them or us or me.

 

My daughter age 7 asks “What happens when you die daddy?”

“What really happens after you die dad?”

 

Am I afraid of death?

Afraid of not being me anymore?

Am I afraid of life?

Afraid of not knowing answers

Growing old?

Forgetting?

 

My daughter loves the sea

we don’t live near it

sometimes get to visit

dancing in and out the surf

Up and down the Dogs Bay regardless of the weather.

 

My son now in his thirties

hardly ever leaves his house

the one he bought from my father’s estate

The house me and the siblings grew up in

Some I argued with, so he could live there

Like his grandpa said.

 

And maybe it’s not so bad to forget?

be free of history

be new

make space for right now

stop so much looking back.

 

and maybe it can be that way with death?

not so bad,

letting go of all this me?

making space for something new?

 

But I’ve a strong ego

Tuff as nails

A Buddha’s nightmare

Veteran of all kinds of wars.

Maybe that’s the equation:

stronger the ego – stronger the fear?

 

I am not the god of my children

too old to fool them with immortality

Anyway, they’re too smart to not perceive

My purely human heart.

 

Love is not an answer but a response.

A response to all those unanswerable questions.

 

Not knowing anything

I love.

The more answers I don’t have?

The more I feel my own true love.

 

So, I tell her –

I don’t know what really happens when we die

But I do know how much I love you ~

 

20 Jan 09

Bob & Sinclair – now there are two from Minnesota!

So it is a little like history repeats itself. Bod dared go electric. Sweden dared go Bob.

Much of the debate seems to center around – can song writing be poetry?

If we take a look we can say that a song may be written from one of two angles or a combination of the two.

1. you get a tune and figure out some words to go with it.
2.  you’ve figured out some words and get a tune to go with them.

Does either approach preclude the words from being poetry?

 

Maybe the words were inspired by the music? maybe inspired by something else and music was chosen to broaden the exposure of the words? What poet wouldn’t like to reach an audience?

Maybe the words were inspired by the music? If so then would not the music be like a prompt? How many poets have written work to prompts? Are we going to set standards for acceptable prompts? Remember a prompt is an inspiration. Does that mean the poetry inspired by music is inferior? So should we exclude from poetry words inspired by music?

What shall be the acceptable categories for poetical inspiration? Do we need a governing body of Poeticals to decide and more important to enforce the structure of purity? A licensing board to ensure that no mere songwriter sully the good name of poetry.

 

Its being done very successfully in popular music, only certain categories are allowed and they must all sound a certain way.  They call it the X Factor.

 

As a poet I am pleased that a poet won the Nobel Prize for literature. I do believe poetry is indeed literature.

As a music lover and fan I am very happy that the songs of my youth are acknowledged as changing the world not just myself.

As an artist I am excited by the fact the Bob has indeed brought it all back home, effortlessly stirring up the frigid & ridged catagorisers of the world. Who knows what great inspirations will fall out? Maybe even a song or two?

 

“Sinclair Lewis had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American to do so. Lewis had written Elmer Gantry and was the master of absolute realism, he invented it. He was from Sauk Center, Minnesota.” – Chronicles vol.1 by Bob Dylan. a Book Of The Year.

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/song 

noun

• 1A short poem or other set of words set to music or meant to be sung.

   

  

  red door paris 2016 pdlyons