Friends, I’ve written a poem a day in April for National Poetry Writing Month 2020, but this is the first one I’m sharing here. I may post some others, or do an “anthology” in a future post, but here’s this one for sure.
Each day there has been a prompt. Here’s a copy-and-paste of today’s:
“Our optional prompt for the day is based on the concept of the language of flowers. Have you ever heard, for example, that yellow roses stand for friendship, white roses for innocence, and red roses for love? Well, there are as many potential meanings for flowers as there are flowers. The Victorians were particularly ga-ga for giving each other bouquets that were essentially decoder-rings of meaning. For today, I challenge you to write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings.”
And here’s what I wrote, and originally published about twenty minutes ago on my Facebook timeline:
****
the fickle delphinium
i blossomed and woke up in a crop
of my bachelor’s button brothers
who had yet to bloom.
“pardon my dust, buds,
i am going to work my magic
and go look for love.” with that
i shook the potting soil from my roots
and went mobile.
almost immediately i saw HER.
Great Horticulturist, but she was
as pollinatable a thing
as ever tickled Georgia O’Keeffe’s fancy.
but by the time i got there
some showoff hollyhock was already sidling
and giving me a sidelong sneer to boot.
didn’t matter. i moved in.
soon we three discovered
how fickle a flower could be–she played us,
dismayed us, and stem-to-stern near-flayed us.
she LOVED being fought over. she could use
a simper like a whip, a sigh
like a blowtorch. “cage match, boys,” she half
DEMANDED as she sun-seekingly spread.
“winner take all.”
well, he had the brawn, but i had the wit,
the speed, and the wherewithal. got in
some sepaljabs and jabbered into his
pistil-holder, “dude! bet you don’t even know
what rhymes with delphinium!”
“like i give a steermanure,” he growled.
“you should, holly hock-a-loogie. delphiniums
LOVE poetry.” i twined off a petal of his.
“she loves you KNOT.” i queen-anne’s-laced him
to the soil. he was melbafied. (toast.)
WOW, was she ready to cross-pollinate. I found
that her breathy oxygenated coo jazzed me more
than a swarm of bees. “i DO love Poetry,” she cooed.
“what DOES rhyme with delphinium?” uh oh.
NOTHING does, according to the rhyming dictionary!!
think fast, buttonhead!!
“my darling, my dearest delphinium!” one line down,
four to go. retrofit!!! “i see you’re….deLICIOUSly…”
whatwhatwhat–AHH! “,,,SKINNY! YUM!” (whew!)
dammmm, was she throwing pollen!! the scent
was flaring my petals!! “a blossom so lavish/i’d
LOVE to enravish…” NOW WHAT??! void! blank!!!
–AHA!! “let us DUST UP a posh CONDOMINIUM!!”
and, though fickle as hell, she was thus made mine.
****
Hope you have an April-Flowery day, Friends!
One with Clay, Image and Text 