Tag Archives: flowers

Poems and Flowers

I gazed upon a flower, a thing of beauty.
A scientist said, “It is my duty
To explain it’s purpose,
Let us look beneath The petals surface”.

I watched how the light did slant
Throwing dancing beams upon the plant.
But the scientist ranted
About the structure of that flower, so lovingly planted.

Is not a poem a thing of beauty?
Yet the critic sees it as his duty
To deconstruct every line.
Oh what happened to the poet’s verse divine?!

Why spend hours
Analysing poems and flowers
When we can revel in beauty
Forgetting “duty”?

The Moralist and the Flower

A moralist gazed upon a flower soft
And with delicacy coughed.
“’Tis most unseemly” said he
“To see
The bee
Make free
With thee.
Thou has forsook
The holy book.
Think on hell
And mark it well
Lest in torment you dwell”.

The flower spake
“Oh moralist forsake
This obsession
With the repression
Of girl and lad.
Wouldst thou have the whole world sad?
Can not you be glad
At the joy
Of maid and boy?

The moralist shook his grey head
And said
“Thou should dread hell’s fire
For desire
Is sin.
Satan enters in
And God destroys
Those who wallow in lustful joys.

The flower said, “breathe in my scent
And relent
Of strictures severe.
Come you near
And touch my throbbing heart.
Let me teach you love’s art.
Give me your hands,
And we will travel to undiscovered lands”.

The moralist did relent
And partook of the flower’s scent.
The heavens where not rent
And the sky’s great tent
Failed to fall.
Only the nightingale’s call
Filled the spring air
Where the lovers dallied without a care.

Hyacinths

Hyacinths on a gramophone.
Alone
They stood
On polished wood.
Their scent carrying me back
Down childhood’s track.
The flower’s smel
Blossoming in a wishing well
With a plastic handle.
My thought tangles
With the ivy that
In a bowl sat.

As a boy
My goal was joy.
The earth was good as the man.
I can
Recall
Honeysuckle on a garden wall
And roses, their scent
Is long since spent.
My grandfather went away
Yet in my heart he stays
As I lose myself, in spring days

The Flower Seller

She stood for hours
Selling her flowers
By Grim towers.
Their scent
Was long since spent.
Their bloom
Was gone to soon.
But still some bought.
Sometimes she thought
Of the bee that does take
And then forsake
The budding rose
Then goes
On to devour
Another flower.
Hour after hour
She saw the power
Of beautiful flowers.
The bees their sweet nectar took
And she was struck
By how the rose does decay
And the bee will have his way.