You don't know her
She is always forgotten

In your memories but soon your lips will only describe her as nondescript

The script of her life
How did she go from being so sweet to rotten
From just nightmares to sleep walking

Sweet ole her
Innocent and pure
Now she is impaired

In the need of refinement
But she doesn't have the strength to try it

You see she is chained to the past
Barely saw her dad
He was mean
Always got the last word

Drunk and abusive
Her mom was an unbloomed tulip
Looked kind but was bitter to her daughter

They'd fight and she would cry at night
She was ashamed of and had extreme anger for mother

How can you watch as she takes hits
Instead of intervening

Police bust down the doors and drag dad to jail
To the homeless shelter we go
No money, no home
It is cold

I barely knew what was going on around me
Refuse to talk to adults because they were all so confusing
And honestly my questions only led to answers that were lies

I had fear in my eye
The things that I had seen
The smoke filled air I'd breathe

Let's not forget the bullies
That talk stuff because I was so "imperfect"

Never had the latest brands
Because mom had no bands

Let's not forget how dad was back again
All hope was drained
She had thoughts of suicide and then a boy came

Walked his way in
She spilled her ink onto his page
He left anyways

Guess her story was too boring

You don't know her
You did at a time

She is nothing but rotten
And only meant to be forgotten

If it shall be then so shall it be
For this is what is thought of me
Like an empty vase within your room
I am the flower that will never bloom

I was always more of an autumn girl, there was something so poetic about watching the leaves fall, maybe that's why I always hated spring. But then you appeared, on that hot april night. So full of leaves. You told me I was an unbloomed flower. So you water me with laughs and sweet words, in a couple of days I started blooming. And then I understood how wonderful spring was.
I now see flowers so differently and with so much respect, because it is so hard to bloom in the time we live in, we are so full of toxic people and words that stick to us like poison ivy, yet you made it look so easy for me.
you told me that I should bloom like a wildflower, no matter the place, no matter the season, no matter the circumstances, you have the ability to brighten up someone's path.

(b.c.)

The Dutch brought art, mud and dirt of the Kathmandu heartland,
With cigarette smoke clouding the air, and pizzas in the oven.
Not overcooked, no medium rare, slight rounded, man-made

The ambiance was now of Rembrandt and Van Gogh,
Yellow with the hint of light.
Perhaps coffee, perhaps tea.
And delight in a conversation of philosophy.
Maybe you'll pay, maybe me.

The open doors swallow in the air of the monsoon,
with the enigma of ever binding books who stuck to the wall
Like wall flowers, some folded papers like petals of an unbloomed bud.
They all had smells better inhaled with tobacco smoke.

The music played, and people dance within the security of their thoughts,
The shelter for their thoughts, the flaws of their speech.
Memories,pure and bright radiated from the lamps above the bar,
Lights which come to us only in fallen stars, but wishful thinking
is dangerous.
Hence forget it like Dutch forgot the wars.

Memories are made here, where the humidity is heavy from the perfume of heavy smiles, or folded chins and forheads from a chess game.
Not hidden, no worries, around the corner.
But yet again man made.

Here lies a bud that could not bloom
Gift upon earth, taken too soon
A seed which was planted who grew
In my heart, lives in my memories

Was forced to depart. Such pain left
Me breathless, swallowed me whole as
I sought my way out seeking truths
Left untold. We all serve purpose

As hard as it Seems to accept
These as reasons to see pureness
Decease. This Seed which was planted
who grew in My heart has blossomed

Inside me ever changing my
Path. Lives on within me, swallowed
Me whole now joining my journey
As the missing piece to my soul.




© Karen L Hamilton, 2015

I am the flower that didn't bloom,
The broken record, out of tune,
Oh won't you love me, please hear my plight,
Because you're the thing my mind plays at night,
A rich symphony in your right,
I give into you without a fight,
You fill my lungs with much needed air,
You can't go,
Don't even dare,
For without you, I fall apart,
And that unbloomed flower, left, with a broken heart.

From the moment I took a breathe,
I was thrown into a narrow way of life.
Unfair way of thinking.
Stunting my progression.
I had to be the perfect little Mormon girl.
"Stand up straight.
Talk like a young lady."
I couldn't express my individuallaity.
Ironically the way god made me.
The words dug in deep perpetually.
"Your eyeliner is to deep you look like a harlet.
What the hell are you wearing?"
I dressed to **** and **** meant ***.
*** made you a deformed unbloomed flower unless you were married.
I was misinformed constantly.
I didn't want to go to hell I wanted my family to support me.
I put on show for far to long trying to please everybody.
I couldn't understand why something so true and great could bring nothing but shame and misery.
I gave my everything and it was killing me.
I was drove to the fine line of insanity.
Free falling down so beautifully.
Finding myself in an erratic deranged way.
No longer following any man into the ground.
Keeping the firm heart within me.

That was then, this is now
Who was where when what was how?
Hear them take their last breath as they're shot down
I scream
Floating in the gene pool, expecting the man who can walk on water to arrive
Sell outs and everyone who has had a bad week even though it's only Monday

Whippersnappers hang their heads in shame
I am one of twelve
So expendable
We live in gluttony
Lineleaders, math teachers, bottom-feeders have no idea
Watch them fall and be forced to crawl on their bellies
We laugh
Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, getting back to your roots
Progeric clock-makers, lying dead on The Yellow Brick Road
Thin-skinned Transsexuals putting bricks in their purses
We live by eight
We die from our weight
And go unbloomed
       -Tommy Johnson
Standing in a nuclear reactor somewhere in Chernobyl looking for the truth
It might be in my contaminated endoplasmic reticulum
I am a radiant
Doppler radar
Monopoly dollar

Singing in the shower, amateur hour
Projecting sour notes
Pouring out their hearts and souls, hear them
Trying

Moo-juice nectar, spilling off The Round Table
Blondes in red bracelets, Kabbalah saves them
Henry pays no tax, John Berryman's bats tell us
You are the lunatic
We are the two quarters of a half-wit
This whole thing is insane

       -Tommy Johnson

<!>

Four Irises tall & gallant, looking though
slighted worn out, a tad bedraggled
they are springtime survivor stragglers
of the Great Spring Weather Battle.

living in an open trench, battle conditions,
wind-whipped by constant strong breezes,
raked by intermittent machine gun rain,
familiar weapons of the “handover” season

loyal guardians of their pinpoint position,
remaining on duty, standing at attention,
dignified amidst the serene, nearly summer, now,
accepting quietude & gratitude of surround soundings

arrow-straight, in dress uniforms of royally purple,
four lead a cohort of unbloomed green fellows,
protecting their charge, an ancient marker of time,
rusted-green bronze sundial, symbol of continuity

these four, boon companions to human and animal,
shall persist long after I cease to dabble in this art,
they greet their admirers in full regalia, every year,
long, long may they live, die and be yet reborn!

here, in place, when we arrived four decades ago, a tiny forever,
changelings heading a processional of the summer season,
greeting all with a simple story of constance of change, of beauty,
leading our Summertime Commencement Exercises

May 26 ~ 27, 2023

When I forgive the monsters among the trees, my petals will grow dusted pink--
These days, I have become a skeleton made of thorns,
An unbloomed rosebush stark against the gentle green.
Sometimes I see sunlight beyond the thick-leaf canopy,
Splintered by branches and trunks more mighty than I may ever grow,
And I recall the sweet and far flowered days, wet with morning dew.
The monsters came in summer heat with clouds for tails and roots hard as stone--
They trod rough on my leaves and stole my roses with grinding teeth,
And left me naked among oaken giants.
Six flooded springs have passed, though every dawn breaks cold,
A suffocating haze, thick as if the sky itself fell to weigh me down,
How slowly fog burns under the rising sun.

and the bus windows fogged by human heat became a part of this child, and the wooden roof rot recliner

for summertime phone calls, and the crying neighbor woman’s sticky mascara,

and the hot asphalt became a part of him…the sideways light on the trees fifteen before dark, and the tract

            house mazes at night, and the hidden playground underground,

and the blooming jasmine over strangers’ fences…invisible barking dogs…and burnt bike wheel tracks,

            and glittered marsh gorgeous and toxic,

and cherry tree lined freeway, and the bitter fruit afterward…and the purple grateful palms…and the

            neighbor’s unbloomed roses;





and the car rides to Elsewhere, and the urban self-sufficience envy,

and the free tickets from the out of town hero…and the wild-haired directors pacing preshow

            lobbies…and the squirming audience beer-in-fist…and the blush-stained sidelit Cordelias…and

            the honest snickers clearing the building into the cold lot still and quiet,

and all the changes of city and country wherever she went.



The red couch, the red rug, the blue kitchen, the dying dog,
The star trek memorabilia, and the dusty book garage, and the overcooked rice leftover…

the weight of guilt, the thought if after all we deserve every ounce,

the streets themselves, and the midnight three block nightmare runs to safeway…and the barbeque smell from not-my-house,

and the ****** children stumbling to the bus,

the brass chimes that fell off the door, and the dead grass backyard blanket, and the overgrown fields

where your dad smokes ***, and the heat wave transposed radio, and the bird nest window mold ,

And the lawn flamingos become a part of him or her that peruses them now,

flame retardant,

american canyon: The Gateway to Somewhere Else, hallelujah, hallelujah,

Amen.