Slow Wag of a Tail, for my friend Molly by PD Lyons

 

 

Slow Wag of a Tail

 

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

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only august by pd lyons

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

 

Rumors of Another Summer

 

 

95º

4^th 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.

 

 

 

Siane part 3, real magic, by pd lyons

 

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…

 

 

yes there will be another summer – poem by pd lyons

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, by pd lyons The Bridget Shields version

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, by pd lyons

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

When I Lived On West Main, by pd lyons

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 down town

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

 

 

Dark Matter by pd lyons

 

Dark Matter

 

Her life like roses blossomed
on sheets of linen
Her skin like ivory
linen stretched on a line
Her breath like Summer
folded into double bed linens
Her hands like linen freshly dyed
beckon to where,
despite meticulous planning,
still warm
I found her
.

 

whenever I cry you’re still there, by pd lyons

indian pipe @ sleeping giant

might be a moment in winter

a tinsel a star gone astray

 ~

maybe first color of Autumn

geese not yet on the wing

~

might be your birthday’s in April

someone with curls in their hair

~

or maybe someone with roses

whistling all summery with out a care?

~

there’s not really any rhyme or reason

not really any way to prepare

~

whenever I cry I see you

whenever I cry you’re still here

~