every year she cut the biggest and brightest
keeping them in a brown bagged pantry to dry out
reaching in to crumble them at season
winnowing the chaff to wind
like her mother and aunties before her
back home in their island paradise

a magical notion
jostling seeds in slow motion
looking like crests on the ocean
neither too high nor too low
broken petals fly free
as seeds fall back of their own gravity

the kids would come ‘round
as projects kids do
to watch and maybe try something new
she would pass them an old melamine plate
a small handful of crumblings to ply
tossing and scooching to catch them again

crimson reds and magentas
lemony yellows
monarch butterfly oranges
violet and lavender purples
crowning petals layered
resembling elizabethan collars

they caught the morning
protected by snail and slug repellent
people came from all around
to admire her oversized zinnias
occasionally picking one and running
garden’s variety of dine and dash

we gifted them to mourners
small packets of zinnia’s seed
extolling them as one of her favorites
soil, water and sunshine
all you need to sow and grow
and watch the memories bloom

I lived at the end of the road.

Lilies, daisies, roses, zinnias, orchids, azaleas, and bellflowers.

Growing at the side of the river in such rich colors.

I lived at the end of the road where no one dared venture.

I lived in that small peeling yellow house, at the end of that long road.

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

I wonder
how our great creator
built a vessel
strong enough
to contain my soul?

Each day my spirit fights
against my skin with violent
jolts as a young bird
seeking exit from a cage.

Unfettered psyche
free from me
bounces among clouds
rolls through deserts,
climbs volcanic ridges
migrates with birds in flight.

Curious instincts guide
my vital force inside and out
like honey bees
scour zinnias in full bloom.

Dare I release my spirit today?

In wings of Amapola
I'm wrapped...a new seed found

Atop round midnight strands
circlets keep my dreams

I'm drunk, intoxicated
spring has poured right through my veins

I sit on dirt side dreams
The desert calls my name
For now, I sit, I wait
I watch through windowpanes

I watch my crystal world
Where butterflies are dancing
And hummingbirds are diving
They dive into white Lilies
then jump into Camellias
While Zinnias wait their turn

The lilacs look my way and tell me, "soon your turn...
Your turn is coming soon"
I smile...all I do
For now, I sit,
I wait... like Zinnias
wait their turn

Let me tell you a story about a busy steet in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world.

Somewhere near the end of this busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, there was a flowershop.

It was a lovely old place; an elegant building surrounded by beautiful gardens with daisies and daffodils and roses. It had bird baths where the cheery cardinals and bluejays stopped by for an afternoon splash, and even a sprinkler for the young children to run around in while their mommy's and daddy's were picking out pretty flowers.

Now, inside this flowershop, there were rows upon rows of pots filled with any type of plant you could imagine: dragonsnaps, lilies, zinnias, tulips, the whole lot. Baskets of flowers hung from the ceiling, overflowing with bright colours. Every once in a while, petals would rain down and the entire shop would look magical.

Everyday, people of all ages would dash into this flowershop. Men in suits, looking to find the perfect gift for their dates. Ladies in dresses, picking out just a little something to look nice in a vase on their dinner table. And of course, the gardeners, with their overalls and ***** fingers.

So, as I said, busy people on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world would dash into this busy flowershop, then dash back out and get on with their busy lives. Always looking for the most ravishing type of flower, the ones that could catch your eye as soon as you entered the shop. Never focusing on anything else.

What no one realized was that there was a small flower placed near the back wall of the shop. It was never moved; always been in the same exact place ever since it arrived at the flowershop years and years ago. The owners had stopped watering it, so the flower was beginning to shrivel up. Most of the petals had fallen off and were now laying in a sad little pile on the ground, and the few that remained had turned the colour of black.

The little flower got sicker and sicker every day, but it never lost hope. Every time the suited man stopped in, or the lady with the dress, or the ***** gardener; the flower would use its last bit of strength to make itself noticed. It stood on its tippy toes, perking up and spreading its wilted petals and frail stem as much as it could.

No one saw.

Then, one day, when the owner was sweeping the floor of the flowershop, he saw something near the back wall. Something broken. Crumpled. Blackened. Ugly. Dead. Something that once was beautiful until it stopped being noticed; stopped being loved.

You see, in a busy flowershop on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, no one's ever going to notice a wallflower until it wilts.

Limelit tendrils kiss her face,
A muscular ball gown crowned with a poisonous dew.
Before the light, as a tiny arrowhead in indoor dirt
Acid steeped inside her while she waited for the day and grew.
She waits still for the day when she escapes and exhales 
In a virulent chemical coronation with much ado.
Her green ****** breath will choke your lungs and
Lay waste to all things in a pheremonic haze and glue.
 
Concrete parts for her roots in the noxious shade of a wilted steel jungle
As she scrapes the sky like a biocidal yew.
Useless eyes rotting out of useless skulls,
Pulling species to their knees to subdue.
An orgiastic tundra of moss and skin and fur
Piling like toxic snow on a human avenue.
Cold-skinned vines pulsate toward one another
Humming strangely and whipping through
And ever upward to meet the bright desert light
Beyond her glorious emerald lair of flesh and mildew.

when i see you i see zinnias
your hair and your eyes and your rosy cheeks
grow tall and strong and flourish
and know that rainstorms will only make you stronger

i feel like Thumbelina
taking shelter under your leaf-umbrella
and watering you with my tears
in turn i will take care of you when you wilt
and shed many a tear-petal if you need to
(because it’s okay to be sad)

when i see you i see zinnias
your words and your smile and your lovely voice
grow tall and strong and flourish
and know that rainstorms will only make you stronger

I can't stop thinking about them:

the dead squirrel,

the doves whose droppings
dot my freshly painted fence--a graffiti
in scatological code beyond my ken

the unmarked graves of Sham,
Krishna, and Chauncey--loyal pets
who never got the needle

the Zinnias up from seed who feel ambivalent
about being alive--one day drooping, the next day
appearing to thrive

and the jacuzzi,
empty now except
for her memory,

the daughter whose name
I will not say, who fell asleep in that hot tub
and did not wake up

perhaps seeds sewn so near
don't know what to make of warm water's
perverse powers