We chat over tea and maple biscuits
as carnations & lilies deck the minutes
Your lips are red petals, fawning
While my feet are wings, flitting
happily as moths amongst tulips
You pin a white clover into your hair
And tuck blue violets on your wrists
Overhead, deadly nettle stings my neck
Igniting inside me, darkness, growing fire
Of barberry and yew - I'm sorry I can't offer you
the sweetness of roses, light of sunflowers
Here, take back all the flowers
And forget me, as I disappear, a scud
in the sadness of half-moon, shriveling bud
Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Poetics - The Language of Flowers, hosted by Sarah Connors. You can check for more information of the flowers and their meaning here.
Please join us when the pub doors open at 3pm EST. Thanks for your visit.
Oh I love this "not happy end"... there are so many cases where the flowers can be overwhelming, and there are nettles and thorns everywhere.
ReplyDeletein Sarah's poem the subject is drinking coffee while in yours it's tea and maple biscuits! I think some of us enjoy cafe society. Yours is a colourful bouquet, Grace, on the surface quite traditional but with the underlying sting of nettles. I love the rhyming couplet.
ReplyDeleteThose nettles can sure sting indeed. The tea is supposed to be good for you though.
ReplyDeleteI like the ending phrase "shriveling bud" tying back to the title.
ReplyDeleteI love your sweet scented bouquet, and then the sudden pain and bitterness. It's beautifully constructed, and captures the contrasts in flower meanings very well. The title is great - I love the word play. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAt least the narrator was honest. Better the pain now than later. Love your bouquet!
ReplyDeleteA brave and beautiful response to the prompt, and like my poem, it takes a code book to fully plum the depths of it. The twist ending, haiku-like, is killer.
ReplyDeleteI like the contrast between the beauty of the flowers and the pain of them as well!
ReplyDeleteLove those final two lines!
ReplyDeleteI wondered where you were taking this and then you suddenly bombed out!! Well done. You were a dud scud in this one!!
ReplyDeleteGrace, you always write such fetchingly tender poems. Lady Nyo (Jane)
ReplyDelete"Here, take back all the flowers"... sounds like someone's allergic ;)
ReplyDeleteThis interplay of flowers is delightful - the distinction between the ones wielded by the two subjects here and the corresponding end makes it worthwhile in a way. The sadness is sometimes better than a mismatched pollen exchange. HA!
ReplyDeleteBut that last image of a half-moon like bud is heart touching.
-HA
Oh the way you played with those petals and their meanings! Love this!
ReplyDeleteI like the contrasting emotions and intents that you painted with flowers here. Gorgeous writing as always, Grace. :-)
ReplyDeleteImelda
Such a prim and proper beginning, sipping tea and munching biscuits. And then we have a bouquet of words :) And finally, those last three lines -- shriveled hopes. Oh my.
ReplyDelete