LOCH LENE by pd lyons, from When you Worship Swans No Longer

Undulate of diamond silhouettes

 North wind skirts pirouette

just past a fishing heron

fingerling samurai silver shadow

breath so deep it echoes

not one golden dream left behind

you’re where I’m gonna be forever

(for shelly)

Title Piece from newest release

WORSHIP SWANS NO LONGER

When you worship swans no longer

Will you find your way to me?

Smoke rising in a breathless voice

Winding between shade and sun

 A dream begun on dew drops

  Daring midday like a ghost

Vowing never to fly

From your embrace

Special First Edition Limited to 150: each numbered and signed by the poet.

Price includes worldwide shipping by regular post in padded envelope.

15.00 EUROS

Items shipped upon receipt of order (purchase through Paypal)

Contact: pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk

With your shipping information and any queries.

Additional inscription on request.

(Numbered books selected randomly)

“PD Lyons work stands at the threshold so loved in Ireland. That almost magical, almost mythical, almost otherworldly parallel that the Irish dip in and out of. Where we chose to believe in luck and superstition and destiny and embrace these as tangible factors in our daily lives. – from the forward by Una O’Neill D’Arcy, Journalist/Freelance Writer

Thank you in advance for supporting this project!

Cover photo of Mays Book in my Kitchen. words by PD Lyons Poet

(May Sarton)

 

how many years

how many miles

 

today the sun just above the horizon

orange auras long silver fingers

 

first frost this year

my unkempt garden

my unkempt heart

 

wilderness

not afraid

 

I would not set the desk

so, my back be to the window

 

I would squander how many poems?

for the distracting view.

 

as well as to be honest

I’d like to see anyone who’d be coming

or thing for that matter

but as I think on that, I realize

 

here in my kitchen

I do indeed have my back to the wall so to speak

I have no view of the front or side driveways

 

only a slight view over the  sink

uneven fence line, ruff grass field, distant trees

not one inch of a glimpse of the little lake

destined to be sapphire in this daylight

the house was not built by someone with views in mind

 

the laundry machine dominates

the last load dwindles the side windows

sweatshirts, dress shirts, Morgan’s school jumper

hang on the curtain rail

 

still the sun finds a spot of gloss on the black mahogany table

just in time for me to go.

~

two swans

over a lake I cannot see

this morning brought November

unknown photographer

 

 

WANTING TO BE IN THE OLD TONGUE by PD LYONS as read by the poet ~

---

from the book When You Worship Swans no Longer by PD Lyons.

Poetry inspired by the village of Fore, County Westmeath and surrounding areas of Ireland, by an Irish American poet.

“PD Lyons work stands at the threshold so loved in Ireland. That almost magical, almost mythical, almost otherworldly parallel that the Irish dip in and out of. Where we chose to believe in luck and superstition and destiny and embrace these as tangible factors in our daily lives.” – from the forward by Una O’Neill D’Arcy, ~Journalist/Freelance Writer

Thank you in advance for supporting this project!

Special First Edition Limited to 150: each numbered and signed by the poet. Price includes worldwide shipping by regular post in padded envelope. 20.00 dollars US/15 euros Ireland/20 euros rest of Europe/15. sterling Items shipped upon receipt of order (purchase through Paypal) Contact: pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk With your shipping information and any queries. Additional inscription on request. (Numbered books selected randomly)

Generously  by the Westmeath County Council Arts.

 

 

 

WANTING TO BE IN THE OLD TONGUE

 

Words

Someday

Someone

Might say to you.

Unimportant memories

Aroused to beauty non-the-less

Like cobwebs beaded up with dew,

Brass fittings on a cedar door,

Day’s debris randomly swept into a banked-up fire

Before to your own black iron bed you’d slowly go.

 

 

With all our coming and our going

Will we ever meet again?

Fragile as the moth is the flame

One slight breath

And darkness has us all.

W/that in mind, I mind no dancer

Let us join whatever way we can

Before the waiting darkness

Makes us all fall down.

 

Clumsy fingers

Holds her own heavy breast skyward

As if the moon, areole hungry

Wouldn’t have found communion

Without guidance.

 

Gentle at the end of the world

Even rocks all soft

And buds of lilac silver slanting sun.

And when gems of green roll down

Meet the slate blue sea

Gently rippled by disappearing pearls?

 

Somewhere we still know women who paint the things we see in dreams

 

Wanting to be in the old tongue

January crows gather.

From the eviction house

Another row of slate slips.

Sun orange fingers

Poke dark shy pillows,

Disturbing bread crumb dreams,

Little red breast birds.

 

Shouldn’t you be left alone?

Cradled in the earth for another thousand years or so?

Discovered as some tantalising source

Of artefactual speculation:

Those marks –

True cause of death,

Or left by some post mortem carnivore?

Perhaps sacrificial ritual,

Signs still legible,

Though fading as if

Some water colour in reverse

Until only bare bleached paper

Slightly stained.

 

Ghost steps.

My warm eastern mouth nourishes,

My amniotic fingers curl,

Personal history noted,

As if by some distant observer

Swirled into tight sips

Almost impossible to savour.

 

Between the posts at midnight

A long wire of electricity

Calls little bits of rusting iron

To lantern the siesta heart away.

 

Title Piece from newest release

WORSHIP SWANS NO LONGER

When you worship swans no longer

Will you find your way to me?

Smoke rising in a breathless voice

Winding between shade and sun

 A dream begun on dew drops

  Daring midday like a ghost

Vowing never to fly

From your embrace

Special First Edition Limited to 150: each numbered and signed by the poet.

Price includes worldwide shipping by regular post in padded envelope.

20.00 dollars US /15 euros Ireland /20 euros rest of Europe /15 UK sterling

Items shipped upon receipt of order (purchase through Paypal)

Contact: pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk

With your shipping information and any queries.

Additional inscription on request.

(Numbered books selected randomly)

“PD Lyons work stands at the threshold so loved in Ireland. That almost magical, almost mythical, almost otherworldly parallel that the Irish dip in and out of. Where we chose to believe in luck and superstition and destiny and embrace these as tangible factors in our daily lives. – from the forward by Una O’Neill D’Arcy, Journalist/Freelance Writer

Thank you in advance for supporting this project!

DAD – a poem by pd lyons from: Wanting To Be In The Old Tongue

DAD

~

The swans out in the field

Their secrets not revealed

Passing into silent flight are they

Perhaps their subtle sigh

Stifles some deeper cry

As they know you’ll be leaving much too soon

~

Walking down the lane

The filly foals refrain

Their running is the sound of falling rain

Are they restless from the summer?

Or somehow do they know

You’ll not stay to seen them fully grown

~

By the fairy mounds of old

The pock marked GPO

Cross the Boyne to bang your head on spiral stone

See the wonders down at Fore

And the ancient seat of kings on Tara hill

~

Now sitting by the fire the music’s playin’ low

(Guess) I’ll raise a glass or two before I go

Though it’s to an empty chair not your smiling face I stare

(Yet) whenever that door slams  expect to see you there.

~

And sitting here I wonder

All those stories finally told

Revealed how in our youth

We were so very much the same.

Was it drink that made us bold?

Or did we speak so true

Because somehow we knew

You’d not be coming back this way again?

.

 

 

may all who journey remember

 

Dad, by PD Lyons / Fathers Day

 

DAD

 

 

The swans out in the field

 

Their secrets not revealed

 

Passing into silent flight are they

 

Perhaps their subtle sigh

 

Stifles some deeper cry

 

As they know you’ll be leaving much too soon

 

 

Walking down the lane

 

The filly foals refrain

 

Their running is the sound of falling rain

 

Are they restless from the summer?

 

Or somehow do they know

 

You’ll not stay to seen them fully grown

 

 

By the fairy mounds of old

 

The pock marked GPO

 

Cross the Boyne to bang your head on spiral stone

 

See the wonders down at Fore

 

And the ancient seat of kings on Tara hill

 

 

Now sitting by the fire the music’s playin’ low

 

(Guess) I’ll raise a glass or two before I go

 

Though it’s to an empty chair not your smiling face I stare

 

(Yet) whenever that door slams, expect to see you there.

 

 

And sitting here I wonder

 

All those stories finally told

 

Revealed how in our youth

 

We were so very much the same

 

Was it drink that made us bold?

 

Or did we speak so true

 

Because somehow we knew

 

You’d not be coming back this way again?

 

 

from caribu and sister stones selected poems by pd lyons,2009, lapwing belfast, ISBN 978 1 905425 90 7