Pdlyons's ExplorationsThose Long Always Summer Nights
Those long always summer huge silver moon nights the colour of your soul because they are.
And you could reach out for my hand and I would take it
And you could whisper me questions and I would answer
And you could open my mouth bringing breath to me
A gift of moon
of soul
of all those long always summer nights between us.
Ghosts of my summers walk by
Long pink skirts trail
Roads of my youth
Still there yet some what changed
As if each and every memory plays out again
This time
A different boy
Meets a different girl
Once you
Once me
Still June.
https://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/pd_lyons1.html
Born and raised in the USA. Traveling 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 .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’.
on today’s tray ~ July, birds, summer. coffee
This July
This July begins cool ruffling all greens enriched June foliage. Small birds dance a sacred circle beneath an empty soon to be refilled feeder. This empire has peaked even though there is still August and possibly September to go. In this fresh breathing air an acknowledgement how winter is inevitable. Because it is July even that thought may be joyous.
Summer
Days counted like folding clothes
Coffee cups by the window
Back garden a dream
Seeds for someone else’s future
Old dog
Patience learnt
Waits quiet
For a sign
A whistle
A name
A dinner
A walk
A pat on the head
~
For my friend ~ Molly
i love rock and / or roll
~
only august
crows
almost quiet
only feather sounds
rising
almost still
only slow
steady beating
as if horses
finally
taught themselves
to march in order
across the fields
almost green
only smoky
spiral dust
almost damp descending
mirage
as if insects
finally taught themselves
to sing
like falling rain
across midday
almost yawning
only august
95º
4th of July
Connecticut
Bare Trees, Winter Night; oldie not so familiar says the radio.
this is age
& what it’s like
& how is there anything else now?
But poplar silver
still sounds like rain
quick sand springs still stream
maples shade deep gorge brooks
high stones circle the pool
of where going down to the horse bones
we were kids.
Real magic has the quality of knowing. By paying attention you get to know things and when they will happen. With this knowledge you can create the illusion that you cause the inevitable to happen. Real power is when you have people convinced that they can’t get along without you. But there are other things, things beyond people. Once I convinced the wind that it couldn’t get along without me.
I’d go out to the top field where the horses ran free. Where they worried themselves only with petty grievances, grazed as they wished regardless of day or night and sometimes lulled by whatever dreams it is that horses dream. lay like dead things strewn.
On a grey out crop of lichenined stone I’d stand, turn my face to the sky and say:
“If I could be anything in the world
I would be the wind.
To kiss the sea.
Embrace the sky
Caress the earth.
Come wind I call you
Bring the rain, bring the storm,
The lightning and the thunders roar.
Come wind I love you!”
I tried this several times and sometimes the wind would come up strong while other times calm and quiet. In other words, I made no impact what so ever. But I did not give up. By now the horses took notice of my antics and drew around as if seeking inspiration from my sermon on the mount. Perhaps they found some but the wind did not. Once I got so angry this is what I said:
“If I could be anything in the world
It would never be the wind,
Insignificant bastard of the heavens
Ignorant victim of a manipulative earth,
Carrier of piss spit bird droppings
Owner of dust and ashes….”
At this did the wind hesitate even for a moment before it went back to ignoring me?
Eventually the horses too lost interest in my daily ritual. After all I brought no carrot or apple, I didn’t respond to their sparing for attention and I was as bored as they with their rearing, bucking, bluffs.
Finally, I decided to give up. I decided that if I couldn’t be master then I would surrender. So when the wind was quiet, I’d say,
“As the wind is quiet and still, so am I.”
And too if the wind moved from the East I’d say,
“As the wind I too move from the east.”
So it was with every direction and with every temperament. As gentle breeze or herald of the storm and too through the seasons such as that of summers comfort or raging winter’s howl. For a whole year this was my daily practise. There were times when I thought I ‘d be carried away, dragged along the ground or else motionless so long I ‘d drop from fatigue. this did not happen. But I did begin to really know the wind, a scent on the air, look of the sky, temperature from yesterday compared with today, slight almost invisible trembling of leaves – all were signs. So closely did I follow that I became as if a shadow to the wind.
In time my movements became just slightly ahead until it was I who cast a shadow called the wind. Until once more late autumn and, I could say “Follow my hands as I have led you this way forever.” And the wind, having no memory of forever, believed that this was so and therefore had always been so. How could it doubt I was who I claimed to be? After all, had we not moved together and had it not now been reminded that this had always been?
So once again I spoke, my purpose being to keep my image in its fragile memory,
“I have known you with whisper, shout and breath,
Shared with you submission and mastery,
Shared with you the gift of motion and stillness
Now remember me!”
And the wind enveloped me and inhaled and from the breath of my voice to the scent carried on every hair of my body – I was known!
Quiet then rocked with shivers head cradled between my knees, my own steamy urine pooling around my toes before trickling down to where a bald faced chestnut mare stood watching like a ghost…
Bridget Shields Rose
Warm summer evening
Soft summer breezes
Stars through the windows
Warm steady breathing
Secretly dreaming
My love asleep in my arms
photographer unknown
Ghosts of my summers
Ghosts of my summers walk by
Long pink skirts trail
Roads of my youth
Still there yet some what changed
As if each and every memory plays out again
This time
A different girl
Meets a different girl
Once you
Once me
Still June
Bridget Shields Rose
Fore,County Westmeath
Sentimental
Nineteen seventy-three followed me
Out into high drifts
Sparkling like sugar
Crisp pancake sun
Sky blue as a bell bottom
No homes to go to
Old leaves summered out
Criss cross
Like stars our hearts
Fifteen years old
So much a live time a go
There were birds beneath her islands
There were bold Fenian fingers of my own
But love was a thing that made me listen when she said no
And even then I believed summer was forever and so I loved her so
citrus in black iron
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