The Lions Of Lyon (27)

 
And who said there were only lions? No one said they had to be alone! This one brings up so many different feelings! (Click on the photos to enlarge them).





For those who have loyally followed The Lions Of Lyon over the past year, there is some good news: deep in the vaults beneath the Shameless castle I have discovered there are about 20 more of these beauties yet to come out into the light.

For those who haven't been following my series, and who couldn't give a horse's nostril about the lions, too bad! They are coming. They are glorious. The competition to find the best one will just have to jolly well wait until ALL of the entrants have had a fair chance at exposure.

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Also, I was very chuffed yesterday to get an email from a university teacher in China who says her/his students enjoyed two of my poems. She/he said they came across my blog through a friend in London. The poems were read out to a class and the students discussed them. Now, how is that for the power of the Internet! I have written back asking for more information: is it a state university? SXP, I hope you like the lions too. Which poems? I hear you all asking. These two:


a bench by the lake


beneath branches with wide knuckles, where leaves would normally chatter, a breath comes over the green of the lake, calming the pulse of a modern man

a wooden bench to rest on is chosen randomly, to claim a pause from the fury of the world, to watch the stillness that beckons those who just can’t focus

with his own story he stays alone, a dialogue of millennium nonsense, his thoughts skimming across the water, beneath the eyes of a church on the hill

a rumbling from beneath seems to stir the past, inviting old footsteps and shadows to make themselves known, long forgotten moments eager to flicker

room is made for a soldier and his weeping bride, for a mother welcoming home an errant daughter, and for a young lad looking forward to 1900




a homeless woman


it’s not exactly the most fetching plait, one in which an ebony pin would shine, but at least it has some form, a sign that somewhere in the rough morning a hand reached back to say i’m still in this life, not everything is abandoned

her windows are clear with a spirit to connect, her palms move forward with vigour, and behind the dirt one can see grace and gold, the queen of a tiny and manageable kingdom, where there is not one reason to think about leaving

they come in white vans, offering warmth and food, called by citizens who think of their own mothers and grandmothers, but she doesn’t remember the sunday roast or the trips to the seaside or her daughters’ holy communions

she keeps moving from coffee to coffee, from doorway to doorway, from one donated bun to another, but every now and then she looks at herself in the shine of a metal receptacle, remembering when she was attractive and so in love



© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.