Philomela of the Bungalows

 

I feel forsaken

like a rolled newspaper in the rain.

Is that You? in the window box?

Is that You? magnificent in a woken engine?

I don't mean to be sullen,

a crushed flower with a brave yellow bloom--

I'm a vine growing in through the window

of your abandoned holy room.

Oh honey. My fingers flat upon

your smooth chest made of smoke,

I am rain falling ever further from her cloud.

Call me back---use your voice of spade-shaped leaves.

I will come, across the lawns and waters

to kneel at your feet

and sing.

__________

for Word Garden Word List--D.H.Lawrence

Music: John Waite "Missing You"

Hollyhocks, Sunflowers, Marigolds

 

Hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

in a field by a white barn waving

where the orange cat searches for the little voles

hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

just a stone's throw over from the spring foals

and the little stream its low banks laving

hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

in a field by a white barn waving.

______

a triolet for Lillian's image

over at Dverse Open Link. 

 

A Cautionary Tale For Young Gardeners

 

There was a seed lying on the ground.

She picked it up when nobody was around.

She turned it over, lifted to the light.

It turned her fingers an upsetting sickly white.

"Little seed,

(she said)

Imma plant ya in the yard.

Imma plant ya

(she said)

where the ground is wicked hard."

Next day--

a big, black, dangerous-looking vine.

it say,

"Feed me skittering bugs and water me with wine.

Sleep with me at night

until you start to lose your sight.

Whisper me your mind

until you've gone all white-eyed blind.'

What happened to Dakota?

She went outside without a coat-a.

Found a seed from a devil weed

and down the wicked Styx she float-a. 

______

for What's Going On? -- "seed"

Music: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals White Rabbit

Honey Locust

 

Delicate, graceful honey locust tree

jeweled in jade as if Orient-made

thorn-pierced I came and wearily

sick of sun and parched for shade.

Faithful, silent honey locust tree

binding the burns that words had done

constantly and steadily

easing the sting of a dream undone.

Summer's darling, the honey locust tree

July and August's waving dancer

when asked to say that you cared for me

dipped in the dark but gave no answer.

Yellowing honey locust tree

not so constant after all

your chill-bared arms revealed to me

the twisting thorns that pierced the fall.

_________

for desperate poets--"woe my spurs; desperate elegies." I have used the spurs above. 

Music: Larkin Poe Day Tripper

Wild Garlic

 First thing in the spring I see the sprigs of wild garlic

and should mine seem a giant's hand that reaches down to harm it,

remember how the neighbor's legions grew to five feet tall

and how I itched to yank and pitch each one of them to Hell,

You'll then indulge me as I hover murd'rously above it

to kill it quick and understand that I shall never love it.

Unchecked, you'll find the stinking stuff takes over every garden,

so if I windmill arms to pull, I do not beg your pardon.

________

for Dverse Open Link.

Green

Green as the cat's eyes reflected in the pane

separated from the season and the sparrows in the rain

Green as the moss on the shingle near the sky

as distant from the sparrows as November from July.

Green is the dress I'll wear when I die

and watch my spirit rise in the green of her eye

indifferent to my dying, indifferent to the way

the blades green up and mock her from half a breath away.

________

for Sunday Muse #149.

June 21st (Green, Wild Green)

My yard is green, wild green
as generous as a lover two weeks past hello.
All of this profusion, it doesn't need me--
it simply is, bursting with itself because it can
and will
and must.

Not so long ago, these trees and this ground
was bare as an old steamer trunk,
empty as an attic. 
It didn't need me then, either,
even in extremity.
Any words or prayers I may have said were said
to comfort
my own mind. 

Lately, I find myself thinking
(as I sit surrounded by green, wild green)
about clouds that change their motion and mien;
about doors and blooms and lovers
that open and close, arrive and slip away. 
I wandered spring and summer until spring and summer were gone,
and now green,
wild green,
reminds me of what I never understand or hold for long,

leaving me lonely to the bone 
thorned by my own stupid and constant craving
in a garden of green,
wild green.
_______

for the mini-challenge.