Banners of blossom
Hardy perennials
One big metaphor

Art is born in a poets hand,
Though, like the fragile flower it is,
Art always crumbles to dust.

It drags the poet with it too,
For deep in their heart it grows its roots.
So when it fades, wrapping tight around their sickly heart,
The beating stops and they drop.

It's a beautiful ***,
But wouldn't it benefit from some green?
I reckon you better start prepping that soil,
Because we're going to plant a tea tree!
Imagine how wonderful that would be,
Blossoming white flowers, a warm cup and bees.

Oh, imagine a garden full of bumble bees!
Buzzing about the perfect petals,
Pouring pollen into the breeze.
If only we had a garden,
We could sit and lunch,
Pastry, cheese, and the sweet drink from our tree!
Darling, while your out buying seed,
Would you grab a few more pots?

Carefully placed and covered with love
Patience emerged in hydration
Stretching into the dancing air
Golden warmth radiates across my face
Sinking my roots further into the foundations
Of past experience
Inching further toward the sky
Waiting to blossom into potential
An open story to share again
May the withering be slow to come
Nourishing those surrounding the performance
I can become,

                                                        ­           once again

The house at the corner of the street,
with its striking red and green windows,
stands out.

An old neem tree still stands tall.
A few years ago, the place was filled with plants and flowers,
and I even noticed butterflies fluttering around.
But now, all the plant life has dried up—
there’s no water to sustain them.

got caught up talking
balked through the window and fell through the back door
umbrella still in bloom

left rings of condensation as footsteps
and also frostbite in 60 degree weather
and also footsteps for nobodies to follow
freaked out by stale nature
valley-cracked teeth
translucent petals poking through nag champa clouds

lost spider solitaire
twenty-one times in a row

lost all the gaba napping in classrooms
and spinning circles around itself
untuned cerebellum in atrophy against the spins

lost it
won an advil liqui-gel
and quickly quit:
jumped off the peak of its dose-response curve
into the pool of a hallucinogenic july

doesn’t matter:
komorebi’s turned apocalyptic;
sunset's turned subvision

now you make shadows on the mirror and wet-floor signs on the tile
get caught in spiderwebs not a foot outside your bedroom
blast faith through android speakers suffocating in her comforter
drown your plants in ***** water

never heard a silver lining
only eat up deserts
for the cacti that’ll propagate later in your throat:

a seventy-five cent zinnia’s last whiskey-driven photosynthesis
rootbound

Bleed me like the root
that burns sins away.

Find me green with envy
along the Mica veins.

Sermons over tiny crescents,
Jack-in-the-pulpit given.

Ghostpipe smoking
with incense risen.

-

Fern's red flower.
Trumpets, devil played.

Creeping by the hour,
Periwinkle's struggle inlaid.

Spirals, the vine choking,
Birch witnessed it all.

An elongated anticipation
before the king snake's fall.