Five Poems by PD Lyons

 

Lilacs Out the Windows of My Mother’s Room

 

Sometimes I’d lay across her empty bed

Tight white sheets

Bed spread folded down

 

Imagining things upon the ceiling

Letting sunlight play patterns behind my eyes

 

My arms stretch like wings

My legs as if I were a star

 

Seeing how deep my lungs could go

 

Returning but Not to Brooklyn Anymore

 

warm stones

cut before Norman times

silent witness now

her own alabaster hands.

 

friends of her parents

children of ghosts

funerals she herself was raised on.

Christmas outside midnight

tolling messages from her American children

repeated prayers of comfort and joy

 

mornings 

sat on the edge of her mother's bed

sometimes joined by the ginger cat

black sweet tea

steam between their matching hands

speak softly anyway

until the day brightens.

 

narrow village miles

crisp breath another stronger winter warning

sometimes she made the high hills

 

sometimes she'd imagine someone

not her children

not her husband

someone she had yet to meet.

together they could share a like

the language of these hills

harmonic sun light

pure deep water

cake black earth

cold dancing like needles across any skin

~

new year's day 

coffee not so bad

waiting for an early morning flight

 

by now the cat already fed

cattle already tended 

damp dogs anxious for their own

heap into the jeep 

around her mother’s feet

 

and

maybe this year

when she came back,

maybe this would be the year

returning but not to Brooklyn anymore. 

 

The Avalon Girl

 

Met the darker double born.

Held her heart out to the heat.

Cut the braid from her own uncut head,

Gifted to his reckless wild hands.

  

Soon carried on to summery lands.

First crossed wastelands of the East.

Met a man who brought her peace.

Golden daughters dakini schooled.

Then rested into holidays & grandchildren,

Feasts begun to cook the night before,

Full house wakes up to a heaven scent.

 

And of her torn heart, spoke to none.

And of heat, preferred now a cooler Colorado sun.

And of her gifted young girl braid,

Remembered keen how the stupid jerk misplaced it.

 

But whenever she saw black upon the green.

Whenever seven roses red appeared.

Whenever she saw the grey eyed sea.

No matter from which continent or shore -

Oh, she would lose a heartbeat or two

 And Avalon she would think of you.

 

From the House of Starlings

 

Didn’t we meet once?

Weren’t you the one?

Draped in skins

Morphine wings,

 

Wasn’t I the one?

Reminding you?

A choir of snow

A month of tears

 

Voices born in the open spaces of our hearts.

 

(For Elsa of River Glenn)

 

my favourite dreams are of the sea

the sky so bright it can’t be looked at

the water dark and deep

the sky bends down in envy

and I am alone in this wide-open ocean

absent from any shore line

knowing as I lie back she will not let me fall 

 

a child barefoot playing on the beach

sand castles built tall as my self

and now with my pail

make a way so mermaids who have been watching

can come up for a visit without leaving their home behind

 

my mother meets me by the creek once marked the boundary of our beach walks

we are walking back I am telling her everyone is doing pretty well.

she is pointing out to where diamonds of the waves briefly meet the sky

 

my cousins brother-in-law brings us to the breakwater to fish. I’ve smoked all my cigarettes and he, the brother-in-law, is generous supplying me from his own. They get bored want to go down to the beach side to swim. I don’t want to, So I stay smoking someone else’s cigarettes fishing for nothing keeping an eye on the gear. Nearby there’s woman on a huge flat chunk of granite. She has two children with her. They are playing together with bits of sea weed. She lays there luxuriant in the sun sounds of the waves and the laughter of her children.

 

walking on the beach with a girl I know from school. the tide high and slack.

we are finding things in the sand noting as we go strips of green weeds, bits of sea glass, bleached bones of small creatures skulls of small crabs. Sometimes there are these pink stones. I pick them up put them into the pockets of my cut-off jeans. She picks them up as well and even though she has pockets on her cut-offs she is rather throwing them out into the sea. I give it a go but mine fall short. They’re nowhere near the long effortless arcs of her own. So instead, I give all mine to her and watch. We continue on in that way. Me picking up small pink stones handing them to her so we can enjoy the long grace of her connections with the sea.

 

 

 

PD Lyons - Born and raised in the USA. Currently residing in Ireland. The work of pd Lyons has appeared in publications throughout the world.

Poetry collections published by Lapwing Press, Belfast. erbacce-Press, Liverpool.  Westmeath Arts Council Ireland.

 

Four Poems by Lilija Valis

 

AVALON 

 

If you find the island

of apples and mists,

vine-covered hills

 

where the wounded King

Arthur was taken to heal,

where everything you need

grows without ploughing,

fruits in abundance

as you lean back

in a garden of roses

listening to a flute

and the distant laughter

of people in harmony

with sacred laws,

an island ruled pleasingly

by nine sisters,

healers and enchantresses,

making it easy to reach

one hundred years or more,

                      

if you find this Fortunate Isle,

send me a message

after you settle in.

A TOWN CALLED PARADISE 

 

They gave Eden another chance --

the retired, widowed, disabled --

their pensions too small for cities

so they moved into a wild garden

shaded by pine and oak at the foot

of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

 

They set up homes, trailer parks

planted individual gardens

neighbour looked after neighbour.

They called the town Paradise.

 

They knew the ancient history –

they could deal with the reptiles

but not with the fast moving flames

that surrounded them one day,

torching people waiting for rescue,

chasing them as they ran or drove

down the only road out of town,

burning wood falling from a red sky.

 

Did someone want to know too much?

REFUGEES 

 

A refugee in a strange land

I watched a play put on by other refugees –

grey tent outside a town

with a medieval castle on a hill –

we had lost everything

except our poetry –

I forget the play

but still remember the sky-blue

sheet stretched out behind the actors,

separating us from

what we were escaping --

I was five years old

had seen a town in flames –

the theatre rescued me.

 

The world keeps reminding us

we’re all refugees

of one sort or another

fleeing or seeking

something hard to find

so we extend a hand

to fellow travellers,

dance in storms

and send our songs

to the blue stretched out

into the unknown.

NO MONEY 

 

We had no money

but we were never poor

 

     once we were homeless

     yet felt at home everywhere

     we fled violence and theft

     but took no revenge

     we found protection

     among the wounded

 

we had no money

but we were never poor

 

     first he studied, then I did

     we had books,

     a mattress, a painting

     friends to share meals with

     we gave coins to those who asked

     others shared what they had with us

     we donated clothing to the free store

 

we had no money

but we were never poor

 

     our medicine was love

     music our prayer

     someone handed us a flower

     as we passed by in the street

     we danced at the free concerts

     in Golden Gate Park    

     watched the sun set

     in San Francisco bay

 

we had no money

but we were never poor

 

     for a short time

     while the sun shone

     fog stayed away

     no one was poor

     everyone was kin

     my home was your home

     peace sign was a greeting

     angels lived among us

     for a short time

 

we had no money

but we were never poor.

Lilija Valis has lived on three continents, in some major cities, including Washington, DC, and San Francisco when there was music in the streets and strangers hugged each other, published in book, literary and e-zine magazines, as well as nine international anthologies, and performed in public libraries, parks, old theatres, pubs, among other places. Asked to step side by COVID until it finishes its performance.

 

 

 

Four Poems by Kevin McManus

 

A Pagan Place

On hallowed ground,

Where the whitethorn meets the blackthorn,

a threshold through the spiritual veil.

When you are with nature you are with the earth,

walking through a living landscape

feeling the spirit of the country,

We change in the thin places

we connect in those liminal spaces.

 

The veil is thin at the borderlands.

at the forest edge,

light coming through the trees,

casting upon the sacred oak,

beside flowing river water,

over rocks and boulders,

by the sea as the waves meet the shore.

 

A connection with those

who were rooted to the same places in the past,

to the people of the mounds,

the hill of Uisneach,

Tara, Bru na Boinne,

Knocknarea, Carrowmore

Rathcroghan, the cave of cats,

into the womb of the world.

 

The soul of the Caileach embodied

in the hallowed places.

Magic is hiding in plain sight.

Spirits move from the outer and inner worlds.

The curtain is translucent

over the three days and nights of Samhain.

To be open and receptive,

to pull deep within the grove of trees,

transcendence in the temenos. 

Lost souls

Sitting alone at the bar in Kilburn,

mid-afternoon on a mid-Summers day

wearing a suit stained with blood,

sweat and booze,

drinking the last of this month’s rent.

 

He took the boat in 57’

leaving behind Mayo,

full of hope and fear,

an address in his pocket,

for a ganger and a start,

money for a week to tide him over,

Sunday best on his back,

new shoes squeezing his feet.

 

No Irish need apply,

lodgings hard found,

working every hour God sent,

paid in the crown at the weekend,

missing home, laughs to hide the pain,

another from the top shelf.

 

Saving for the summer holiday,

putting a little by,

back home for a week to the old sod,

buying pints for the lads,

bragging about the wages,

gold chains around the neck,

bought from a suitcase.

When did you get home?

When are you going back?

 

Back to back breaking in blighty,

years passing on,

body getting tired,

drink taking hold,

no money for the holidays,

or the funerals at home.

 

Nights in the doss house,

sleeping on the rope,

days on the streets,

dreams of a long-gone family,

passing away in the cold. 

Thaddeus and Eleanor danced after the storm

Thaddeus stood at his doorway observing

the formation of an all-engulfing storm.

He was no longer satisfied with silence

or listening to the gentle sound of rain

tinkling against his window,

lulling him to sleep.

He wanted new challenges,

new tumults to ascend.

 

Thaddeus awaited the scream of the wind,

above him his eyes lifted

to the stratus skyline,

the wind surged forward and

endlessly pounded like hammer blows

upon the earth,

overhead in darkening skies,

cadaverous clouds streamed

in abundant chaos.

Thaddeus welcomed the storm;

in fact, he embraced it and danced

within its swirling torrents.

 

In a previous life he battled it,

he outstretched his arms and cursed it,

the storm appeared never-ending to him,

it was all consuming,

waiting to devour him,

he was pulled into the deluge and sank

into the black depths of the dark water

as he struggled to swim,

to stay alive as the unremitting waves

battered him,

to fight against it appeared futile,

but he learned to endure the lash,

the agony of its rampant fury.

 

Thaddeus learned how to stop fighting it;

the more he resisted the further he sank,

Thaddeus learned how to float.

 

His saviour was Eleanor,

she taught him how to ride the storm,

to ride the crashing waves of the tempest,

she gave him safe harbour

in the volatile chaos that was his life before,

a shelter from the swelling seas,

a comforting light of hope

that guided him home past jagged reefs

into the arms of a nurturing cove,

her voice was soothing to him,

her words like the melody

of a familiar song

he had heard before

but couldn’t quite remember where.

 

When the storm was over

and the carnage complete,

when the corpses had been counted

and the branch was on the bough,

Eleanor took Thaddeus by the hand

as they transcended light and shade,

they ethereally floated,

spectres on the shrill breeze

beyond time and latitude,

With no earthly constraints to hold them

to root them to the ground,

they rose together elegantly upwards to glide upon the heavenly currents.

 

When Eleanor took Thaddeus by the hand,

they danced after the storm. 

 

 

The gloaming

 

Inside,

shadows silently slide

across the grey floor,

climb up the papered wall

and darken the window.

 

Outside,

the dusk hangs on the withered tree,

its limbs slashed, mutilated and torn.

Barbed wire twisted around its torso.

Piercing deep wounds into its old decaying bark.

     

Above,

a murder of crows swarm,

a dark dance against the dying evening light,

a chorus of their shrill harsh caw,

before reposing on high oak branches.

 

Beyond,

over the brown heathered hill,

the setting sun casts its colours,

 

an orange glow across the heavens,

then steals away to ascend again.

Kevin McManus is a poet-writer from Leitrim in Western Ireland. He has published six novels, a collection of short stories and two books of poetry. His latest poetry book called “The Hawthorn Tree” is published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast.  His poems have been published in various journals including the Cormorant, the Madrigal, the Honest Ulsterman and The Galway Review. He is currently compiling a new poetry collection for publication later this year.