About/ revised 29 March 2015

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 9 December 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/

Lovers w/ the Cello Player, by pd Lyons as published by A New Ulster Magazine # 29

Lovers w/ the Cello Player

envy of every straight male
hugged by those knees

arms for which the word sinew was invented
hands entwined by pure blue vines

exquisite needles drawn from every inch
spread through
return to

our randomly occurring bodies
until this moment never knowing anything










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Photo Credits :
1) morgan lyons, The Arming and Departure of the Knights, one of the Holy Grail tapestries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Grail_tapestries
2) pd lyons – unknown artist, Wasworth Atheneum, Hartford CT.  
 http://thewadsworth.org/
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https://sites.google.com/site/anewulster/issue-twenty-nine

The Woman, by pd Lyons as published in A New Ulster # 30

The Woman, by pd Lyons as published in A New Ulster # 30

The Woman

I could not speak.
Maybe loved more gently
I could have.
Maybe if there was a moon
I could have.
But only sun –
a crazy glue
lips sealed
slays weds
impregnates
itself.

This is what I cannot say,
this is what they refuse to hear:
After death is pre-natal.
Through me,
everything is world.
Without me?
Conception is by eating,
birth by excretion.


http://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_issue_30

The International Women’s Day issue of A New Ulster one of Northern Ireland’s online Journals featuring the works of Marion Clarke, Helen Harrison, P D Lyons, Marie Lecrivain Judith Thurley and Mari Maxwell and many more

Do Do Run Run by pd lyons as published in A New Ulster #30

(photographer unknown)

do do run run
after the show she’d call him
wait with the security guys out back
in the open door way if it was storming
watching waiting smoking.
she’d heard they added menthol to ‘em so you wouldn’t feel what they were doin’ to your throat,
she wasn’t sure about that – isn’t there just too much miss-trust in the world?

anyway it never took him long,
no matter what the time was
even if the show ran late
even if there was snow
he was never long.
run up them iron stairs
and every time
kiss her before saying hello, how was the show?
and walk her arm ‘n arm to the car,
open and close her door …

she was back up singer in a steady small town gig.
the one who wore a black beret,
sang better ‘n most of the stars she broke her ass to make look good.
and maybe if she were younger…
and maybe if she weighed a little less…?

back home,
he’d always have something good and warm and ready to eat
and sometimes in the shower the hot water lasts an hour
and sometimes she’d have a little something strong to drink.
and he’d put something on the stereo real low like madam butterfly
and lay her down until falling asleep
only by some taunting dream
she’d wake
to find
his arms
around her.


http://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_issue_30

Anu issue 30 A New Ulster

The International Women’s Day issue of A New Ulster one of Northern Ireland’s online Journals featuring the works of Marion Clarke, Helen Harrison, P D Lyons, Marie Lecrivain Judith Thurley and Mari Maxwell and many more

The Israel Of My Heart, by pd lyons

condolences to the world and in particular the children regarding the out come of the Israel elections. at least the Israelis have made themselves crystal clear.


The Israel Of My Heart
 
stares like a stranger
sometimes from doorways almost in the rain
sometimes through haloed moonless streets
unable to make peace
unable to articulate
engaged none the less
 the Israel of my heart
flows like tears
through my each and every step

how can I meet such darkness all alone?
it is through weeping not muscle
such chains are broken

dear everybody…. Today by pd lyons

dear everybody…. Today by pd lyons

this is it.
this is life.
LSD a placebo.
religious ecstasy a placebo.
stop looking be seeing.
stop waiting be experiencing.
stop trying be allowing.
this is it.
this IS life.
This is bliss.
get on with it.
see you later the sun is out all across the most amazing world I have ever known…..

every place is a small town needing to be left, by pdlyons

you think you know where you want to go,
unable to know where you are?
  small spaces hold a universe of ache.
leaving is all I’ve ever known,
 
all I am ever able to truly do.
when you are walking down streets
and I no longer do so,
does it mean you are any more there than I am?
does it mean that you’re leaving and mine
some how differ?

we can not fit any more into any space than the universe,
and that too leaves its own ache down it s own street.
all there is, no guide to us
or any one else for that matter.

like some

Micky Corbo hair do

angel wings

tribal dowries

cool tree in yellow back from the end of the year

crows like days between the worlds

all lemoning and impossible to capture.

As Long As Its You, by pd lyons

As Long As Its You, by pd lyons

As Long As Its You
When you breathe it is my name.
When you stare reflected statuesque,
Your own eyes black pools,
Liquid movement synchronize my own.
Who knows me any better?
Naked throat? Beating heart?
You may heal. You may feed.
Whatever you do, as long as its you.

Jenny, by pd lyons as published by The Poetry Warrior 2009

Jenny

my fingers have touched

your face

your razor cut hair

rose bud lips

every square inch of how you define your

slender secret self

vulnerable to love

shielded by the city

defensive diaphragms

nicotine & coffee

shadow sister

manhattan monochromed & cool

believing anything was possible we were the same

beneath warm tones of old bones

pictures of girls and oceans

first born anxiety

visitation eased by distance

horizons met and thus reset

soft steady ache like something summer upon green lawns

time to talk in silence

—

 

In 2009 this poem appeared in :

The Poetry Warrior - The Real Poet’s Ezine.

www.thepoetrywarrior.com

Thank you to Abigail Beaudelle editor.

Photography by pd lyons :

1) artist unknown

2) citrus in black iron

True Democracy & Boomerz by pd lyons

See I was taught that democracy takes courage. The courage to allow the rights of the other. Not only their right to exist but their rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That it takes democratic courage to allow the other a voice, a choice, a privacy, an equality.

The belief that majority rules is erroneous with regards  to true democracy. Otherwise everything depends on the personal belief of the many. This is only might makes right, this is not democracy. Democracy is the courage of all to allow the human and civil rights of all.

The question we should be asking people is – do you really want to live in a country where the your rights and the rights of others may justifiably be revoked every time the majority demographic shifts?

Today when I look at my country that’s what I  see. Rather than the nurturing of courage, it seems to perpetuate the right to bully, the right to instill fear, the right to make money at all costs, the right of might – with no regard for the amount of misery, tragedy, or  instability it causes  its own citizens or the rest of world.

It has always taken extreme courage to be democratic. It still does.


 

Boomerz

I live only in memory
The day to day does not inspire me
I only want to sit here think about what used to be.

Here only in my own home.

 Locked doors, paid taxes, insurance policies, protect me.
TV,  petrol chemicals, nourish me.

People not like me outrage me.

Boomerz – from  Caribu & Sister Stones

ISBN:     9781905425907

Published by Lapwing Belfast

Photos by pd lyons