The Reservoir

By Patrick L. Lysons

A fusion of images; a sequence of concepts built one upon the other; a use of the ordinary, physical landscape to escape the boundaries of ordinary descriptions or interpretations. A theme of change: mutabilityeven death. A paradigm of paradoxes that explode in transparent colors of a desert mountain, a gushing stream, a surface nihilism that curls back on itself, becoming an infinite resource for ideas, images. A poetry that honors traditional forms yet creates its own design for experiential language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503561731

Patrick L. Lysons

Patrick Lysons holds a Master of Arts in English from Northern Arizona University. In this newly revised edition of The Reservoir -- the second book of his poetic trilogy -- an ancient concept springs to life in a grounded poetic lyricism– the metaphysics of inspiring landscapes pitted against time’s restless relentlessness.

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Copyright © 2015 by Patrick L. Lysons.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015905815

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-6172-4

      Softcover      978-1-5035-6174-8

      eBook         978-1-5035-6173-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/13/2017

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Contents

Mount Escudilla

Observation Decks

Montezuma Lake

Alterities of the Trees

An Ancestry of Bluebirds in Florida, c. 1792

Graveyard Weather Music

A Memory of Cactus

Selfies: An Explanation

Monarchies

Smoke Phantoms in the Forest

Autumn Sun Setting

Fishnets

Twilight in Ancient Mountains

Three Movements Under the Sun

Zunino/Winter

Zunino / Almost Spring

Zunino/Spring

Waking Up on the Reservoir

Subterranean Things

North Twin River

Dreaming of Rilke

School Friends Walking Around a Lake in Fall

An Empty Field

Thunderstorms in AZ Space

The Sadness of the World We Inhabit

Diversions in an Arid Country

The Fires of Summer

Swan Song (Death Alone Is Motion)

Pearl Peak

Lanterne

On a Question of Identity

Afterlife

The Horses in Autumn: 1979

A Song of Intent

The Cloistered Nun

A Mountain and a Sun

On the Ends of Strings

Parenthesis (Death)

Untitled Sonnet

Song for a Lady Who Sings

Postmodern Ghosts

Ascent from Below

A Dark Night without a Moon

Hermitage

Wormholes

At the Crossroads of Two Worlds

Developmental Blocks of Perception

Impressions at the End of Time

The Eternal Return of the Same

Epilogue Sequences of Clouds

In Memorium

Hugh Prather

Dr. Kenneth Wapnick

Preface to these poems

Arches National Park Early Fall, from the Journal 1987

A high clear day, almost hot. Under Landscape Arch after a long, difficult hike. It is mid-afternoon. I am finding it very difficult to photograph the Arch.

Across from me, on a house-sized boulder, a mark of interest, a symbolic mystery, a speculation staring back from etchings made by nature or by man. Horseshoe in shape, it is strange, uncanny. Perhaps it means nothing. A kind of petroglyphic short hand not written by a primitive hand of man.

The Arch is high and long and thin. It hasn’t much time left before it cracks and crashes