Miss Peri Lyons: The Ampelopsis Diaries
Miss Peri Lyons' observations on:love,culture, ghosts, love, celebrity, psychic ability and how to get it, fashion, boys, girls,cats, artists, love, and anything else that wanders by. What is an Ampelopsis? To quote Lord Peter Wimsey: "An ampelopsis is a suburban plant that climbs by suction." (Speaking of which, everything here is copywright-ed 2012 immediately.)
28 July 2021
What The Day Brings
02 May 2021
The Lilies of the Field Are Trying To Tell You Something
Valentine's Day Is Approaching. For God's Sake, Hide Me, Someone!
Or,
The Lilies Of The Field Are Trying To Tell You Something
Did you know that, on Valentine's Day, if your dreamboat
hands you a bouquet of purple irises, he or she is actually saying: "I anxiously await your [sexual] favors"?*
( *Author's Note: Well, with any luck.)
Or that, hidden in that lovely collection of fragrant pink dahlias, is a a subtext that actually warns of imminent betrayal and sexual degradation?**
(** Author's Note: Agatha Christie says this is what "Dahlia" means,.Other sources say it's actually what "evergreens" mean, but I flatout refuse to believe all that about my Christmas tree.)
-Of course you didn't, because: a): You're not a big ol' crazypants, and, 2): It is no longer circa 1850-1890, which is when the "Language of Flowers" was an accepted way to communicate your secret feelings to your loved one in floral code. In Victorian England, every flower in a bouquet, had a very specific meaning: that tradition, though long forgotten, still resonates on some level. Case in point: we give red roses almost exclusively these days, to be on the safe side: red roses, in the Language of Flowers, mean "I am romantically in love with you, although this floral arrangement does not actually constitute a legally binding agreement." And the reason you have never offered your fiancé/e a selection of lobelias, lime blossom and houseleeks? -Is because you somehow knew you would be accusing her of, respectively, "fornication; malevolence; and poor domestic economy."(And frankly? You'd be right. Sorry you had to find out this way, man.)
So here is a selection of the Language of the Flowers, circa 1885, and then the Language of the Flowers, circa 2016.
Happy Valentine's Day!
love, Peri
Language Of The Flowers, 1885 version
1) Camellia: I live in gratitude of your perfected loveliness!
2) Chrysanthemum: I admire your cheerfulness through adversity.
3) Damask Rose: I worship your brilliant complexion.
4) Fuschia: The ambition of my love thus plagues myself.
[Author's note: "Huh?"]
5) Peach/or Peach Blossom: Your qualities, like your charms, are unequalled.
6) White Rosebud: You are too young to understand love.
[Author's Note:"I get this one a LOT."]
Okay. Moving right along:
The Language of the Flowers, 2016 Version:
1) Dandelions: You're okay, considering. I guess.
2) Poppies: I love you, but not more than I love prescription medications.
3) Carnations:My God, you're beautiful. My God, I'm cheap.
4) Rare Orchids: Aren't these exquisite? I'm sleeping with your sister.
5) Daffodils: Your optimism is touching. If delusional.
6) Asters: These are asters. -No, that's it, that's the message. Sorry.
7) Peach colored sunset roses: Your skin is like a flower petal at sunrise, and I think i might be gay.
8) Red roses: I think you're swell, I think you're aces, and I think it's 1947.
To sum up? Flowers are a beautiful means of communication, wherein you can totally say stuff you mean, and not have to cop to it. The Victorians may have had their flaws, but they have a lot to teach us still. Especially in the area of being completely passive-aggressive and yet, still decorative as hell.
love,Peri
18 September 2016
The Unicorn Is An Asshole, And Other RenFayre Tales!
One especial favorite of mine is the Puerto Rican Bagpipe players band, called the "MacGordon Clovers". I walk by and watch three big guys staring worriedly at their pipes as they warm up, and then, apparently relieved to remember that horrible squeaking is the whole POINT of bagpipes, they relax and launch into a Socttish march.
The gorgeous young gender neutral person who is acting as the Blue Knights Page, brings a huge wooden lance to the Blue knight. The Blue Knight is the showman of the bunch..he makes his attractively piebald horse rear and whinny and do that "legs pawing the air' thing that I just realized i also don't know what it's called,. a flourish? Anyway, the horse does the Cool Horse Thing, and everybody cheers, wildly, and we're away!
He lit up like a Christmas tree. Soon he was next to me in line, and we were trading off Sorry Mime tropes like there was no tomorrow. Was at the point of giving up ever getting to pee and instead giving in and buying a black beret and stripped boatneck chemise (such as mimes wear) and possibly taking the kid to Central Park to infuriate passersby, when suddenly the Secret Handicapped Stall in the side wall opened and I darted in, completely unethically. The kid was gone when I got out, but I consoled myself by singing "I'm Hennery The Eight I Am" with a young gentleman who was crooning it quietly to his new bride, possibly as a warning, as we walk up the chill gray stairs. He looks surprised, and a little chagrined, but we finish the song whether he wanted to or not, and I stride off victorious towards my tribe.
As we are waiting for her to come back, we see A Marvelous Magic Show Is Commncinge, Sic, and we trot over to sit in a ring of hay bales, to watch the late middle aged, slightly bitter hippie, Bill-Maher-lookalike-with-sixty-pounds-extra, magician. There is a classic New York Yenta standing behind us (when her son urged her to take a seat on a hay bale, she visibly recoils, and says "on STRAW? You want me to sit on STRAWWWW?") and she keeps up a critical commentary during the entire show. As the magician keeps moving the children in front back, and back, and backer, she says, "What? What is he going to do, that needs the children so back? What? Juggle fire?" (pronounced "fiyuh") Tame elephants? What? He needs so much space? Why?"
Blessed Be!
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
10 March 2016
"Last Letter From Stalingrad, 1943"
by Peri Lyons, c 2016 all rights reserved
(Author's note: In 1976, a mailbag came to light in the archives of the US Army. It was filled with letters.
These letters were written by German soldiers. In 1943, the German army abandoned the soldiers it had left in Stalingrad, leaving them to die of exposure and starvation.. These letters were written by the men, when they knew no one was coming back for them. The ltters were never mailed.
I found these letters in a book, and, although of Austrian Jewish descent, I was moved by the words of men I grew up thinking of as enemies.
.This is a reimagining of one of those letters.Who this man was, and why was he was "avoided by men", I will never know.-PL))
***************************************
Last Letter From Stalingrad
Dear Monica
There are four of us here
For the first time I have friends
other than my friends, the stars.
(I couldn't look up from my telescope, Monica.
Not then. You know why. I was avoided by men.
So I looked at the sky.)
This letter will take two weeks to reach you
It will all be over by then
Do not believe what you read in the papers
of what they say has happened here:
What are the judgments of others, to you and me?
Monica, the time is too serious now to joke:
You were always my best friend.
I have always thought in lightyears
But I felt in seconds.
On this beautiful night
Andromeda and Pegasus are right above my head
I have looked at them for a long time
I shall be very close to them soon
My peace I owe to the stars, Monica
Of which you are the most beautiful to me.
Around me everything is collapsing
An army is dying
Day and night are on fire
And four men busy themselves with their job
We measure temperatures
And report on cloud ceilings
Here too. I have much to do with the weather.
No one, no one will come for us, Monica
There is no one to come
The clouds are rather low this evening
They make a pattern I have not seen before
I want you to know my secret, Monica
No human being has ever died by my hand
I have never loaded my pistol
With live ammunition.
I should like to have counted stars
For another few decades
But I suppose nothing will come of that now.
I have always thought in lightyears
But I felt in seconds
On this beautiful night
Andromeda and Pegasus are right above my head
I have looked at them for a long time
I shall be very close to them soon
My peace I owe to the stars, Monica
Of which you are the most beautiful to me.
07 March 2016
rapturemath
just this way:
This (accidental) heaven
That might be:
True..
Wrong, rightly:
Loving completely,
30 September 2015
Family Pictures
"Wait, whose face? You mean, in December?"I asked.
" The catcher’s mitt. That face. Ha!” he said happily,”The Shtetl’s Revenge. Binah’s Back. --Alright, Miss Feet’s Too Big , do you want anything else? Dog food, ice cream…”
He shuddered theatrically. “I refuse to BUY anything else. That’s a GHASTLY combination.”
08 June 2015
"Goddess" is such an overused word.
¨Goddess" is an overused word.
Look over here.
Yes
I am that girl
The first and the middle and the last and the always girl.
Yes! -THAT one.
The girl you had the crush on in kindergarten, your eyes sliding over to see
if I'd be
Your secret Valentine.
I am the joy in that five year old's smile, always, for you, and,
I am her joy, she is me.
Today I cried, though. I feel no goddess at all.
When I was away gathering wood for our hearth, she whispered to you
And you frowned and nodded and said " Yes that must be true"
And you both said "Go. We don't want you."
And now I feel small.
I take out the bright mirror and the dark mirror,
The dark mirror sings
"You are ugly, old one. You are wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong."
The dark mirror has a song like a lullaby buzzsaw. It sings
"Oh what I say is true,
The gifts you give are tainted. No one loves ,or could love, or WILL love, or HAS loved
such a one as you."
I can feel my strength rain away.
I reach for the bright mirror too
The bright mirror says nothing, for the bright mirror is busy doing her own makeup
The bright mirror says "Am I as pretty as her? What can I do?"
Throw those mirrors away, sister . The only mirror here is you.
So? You gonna cry or you gonna play ball here or what?
We say together:
YES no YES!
I will not let anyone steal my fire
You will not be my Prometheus
And if you do steal my fire, so what?
Stolen fire goes out and leaves you in the dark
My fire keeps replenishing. You cannot handle my real fire
For then you'd have to know that you have your own.
Yes
I am the singer in the storm.
I am my own medicine. I make this from all poisons .
I love my own grace, wit and style enough that you don't have to...but you will.
I promise
Ohhh you will.
I have the interdependence
that is the true independence,
A bird entwined with the wind,
I have unlimited riches that are also yours
I am like a queen so entwined with her people
I am proud of the love of making songs
that flows through me like I am the trout and the river too
So:
I will be vulnerable ...but not foolish with it
Generous.. but not foolish with it
Foolish but not fucking stupid
If I am foolish we will laugh together
I laugh with you at the joke of our own being.
I am proud of the tender heart that nestles in my breast like a bird.
I am happy to be happy. Sad to be sad.
But my emotions are my own.
My life? is is my own. Yes, I bend towards those I love, like a reed,
but then
I sway back to stand tall again
against the river
I am truth. Simple and in bloom.
I call in the spirits of my ancestors to surround me with family love.
AOnce they arrive, we open the door to friends:
I call in Hare Spirit, who always sees the joke
Who guides the seer in her tent and brings food and water
To the oracle in her cave
And jumps away fast, white tail mocking your slowness
I call in Ant Spirit for working when I don't want to work particularly
Thank you and fuck you Ant Spirit.-No, really.
I call in Beautiful Oshun for love and abundance,
I call in Wise Minerva for intelligence,
and Probably Lesbian Artemis to protect me
with her bow and slightly ironic arrows
I burn sugar for the Hungry Ghosts and they don't notice me in their greed for sweeties
Rush past me out the side door, unbiting, full;
I am that Valentine filled with moonblood,
I am the healer, skin against skin, breath combined to make me part of you
There has never been a such as I
I am the only one like this, made of mud and snot and orgasm and fireflies
Of mirrors light and dark, the spider and the spiderweb,
I am the only one like this!
Throw back your head and let your throat reverberate with your yell
that you are the only you
And I will see you again at sunrise
And we will do this dance again
Daily, the same.. only?
we
are
Different.
17 February 2015
Everyone Loves Me But You
But i do
I stay home at night and paint my toenails blue.
And Sunday? Gosh I hope I don't sound rude..
But the next few years there's just no time that's free...
Know how hard you studied but you never took the test;
So be free:
But you won't have me as wife
Because everyone loves you
peri lyons 2015
09 February 2015
Five Things to Do Before Getting Outta Bed That Will Make You Happy
I have a list I keep of people I adore, appreciate, am grateful to and for, and it's in a notebook next to my bed. I add to it every morning (after getting out of bed), when I'm doing my spiritual work, so the list keeps growing. Nice thing about "love"-that most folks don't think about- is that it doesn't have to be A Really Big Deal, or reciprocated (though it probably is), or Legally Binding. It doesn't just have to be family and friends...it can be as simple as people you bump into every day who smile when they see you.It can be your pets, past and present. It can be your favorite diner waitress. It can be ex lovers for whom you still wish the best. It can be- it is!- anyone who makes you smile.
Or..or..You might be in the right place at the right time to say the right thing and change someone's life for the better. You might write a song that will outlive you. You might exceed your known limits and inspire yourself and others. You might get smiled at by a baby. Someone might tell you you're beautiful. The world is so full of possibilities tat there isn't even a word in the English language to express it. In other words? It might be better than you think. Eventually? It always is.
Because, maybe....I'm happy. Didn't used to be. Hoo boy. Nope.
In the last five years, I have survived brain injury, heart failure, clinical depression, tumors, reversal of fortune, and a fiance's suicide. (I also stubbed my toe once and got a C in algebra. IF you can imagine.) But for whatever reason, I seem to get happier every day, in bite size increments.
05 October 2014
"the possum" fiction 2014 c Peri Lyons
(For Jim, who didn't ask.)
I got my secondary education in country music when I was 25 and in rehab for coke and booze. Although I was a spoiled NYC brat, suddenly I was living in a halfway house, in a Bloomington, Minnesota converted convent, filled with other women who had just stalled out at the crossroads of "What The..?" and "Fuck St.". The place was haunted, too...there was a perverted ghost named "Henry", who used to spy on us in the showers. Only me and my Lakota Sioux roommate, Wanda Blue Day, could see him, but everyone could feel his weirdo pervert energy. The halfway house was not a place you wanted to come back to, and with the exception of one time with a British duke at a Bastille Day party at the Dragignon palace of a Greek shipping magnate years later? I never, ever did coke again.