I was walking in the cemetery,
a place where death sits quietly among grass, bush and trees,
where grief is softened by green,
where the living come to forget and remember.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves.
Birdsong floated, indifferent and kind.
Graves stood in silence
some proud, built with stone too heavy for the dead,
others modest, marked by trees,
their roots winding down
into stories no one tells anymore.

Most had flowers.
Bouquets like offerings,
some fresh, some already fading.
Life pretending it can outlast death.

Then I saw it
a tulip, maroon,
its head bowed, its stem bent
not plucked,
but broken while still alive.

It hadn’t been laid there in tribute.
It was growing.
Rooted.
Alive.
And dying.

It leaned on the edge of a grave
like a mourner
who had run out of words.

Its siblings stood tall beside it,
still laughing in color,
still reaching for the sky,
unaware of their fallen one
or perhaps resigned to the order of things.

There was something tragic in its solitude.
A flower that had come to give beauty
and now was dying
on dust already claimed by death.

The irony was sharp
even the beautiful who serve the dead
must die too.

And no one brings flowers
for the flower that dies.

I stood still.
The tulip did not move.
A breeze passed, but it did not rise.
Some deaths happen quietly,
with no audience,
no cry,
just a slow fading
into the soil.

And I wondered
Is this what we are?
Not stone,
not names,
but small, nameless offerings
meant to bloom once,
to bow quietly,
and to vanish
without sound
while the world keeps walking.

Tulips
Common, trusted, beloved.
Planted in gardens, gifted in joy,
Welcomed without a second thought.

And then—me.
Fragile, fleeting, misplaced.
Sought only in sorrow, left to wither,
A beauty seen too late,
A name too easily forgotten.

Lycoris Radiata.

And I cried oceans
And I stood in your emotions
I think halfway through
I lost the notion;

Of what love is
As I felt the breeze
Of cold air and tulips
I paced through your mist.

And you're so empty
Don't love me gently
Leave me behind
Assume I'm blind.

Perfect doesn't exist,
I clenched my fist.
Prayed for God's call,
I know if I fall,
I gave it my all.

now that I am in my seventh or eight decade,
(not particularly sure when you start counting)
memories bust out like the flashbulbs on olden cameras,
briefly bright as hell, illuminating and annoying as hell,

this flash came to me this morning and don’t know why,
but it was worthy of writing down for no particular reason.

when I was a child in one of those indistinguishable early grades,
my teacher informed my father at an annual parent teacher partee,,
that I was “not particularly smart,” which angered him greatly.

He went home undecided whom to hide (1) p,
the teacher or hide me.
unsure, he was, which was the smarter course of action
(for my mother had passed and he without a consultant),
but informed me, who promptly hid (as in escaped)
in the only place suitable in our tiny house, behind the couch,
that was my mother’s pride an joy.

more tired than angry, he reflected while sitting on said couch,
listening to my breathing/panting, he decided that perhaps
the teacher was kerrect, and furthermore, I was not to blame,
(told to me years later by his serious drinking buddies)
“given the stock he came from, it was less my fault, and more his.”



this too, is only a love poem…



(1) hide as hiding, a countable noun, if you give someone a hiding, you punish them by hitting them many times).

Sow good seeds,
They'll bloom blossoms of love,
Add some good deeds,
Invite the sun from up above...
to rise up within you,
So you shall shine with rays of kindness,

You have to **** the weeds,
                                        and
stay away from the snakes,
for you
                                        and
your garden's sake...

Tulips, zinnias, petunias, sunflowers
                                        and
peonies too,
how wonderful for you!

Dirt
         You've turned into dirt.

Twisted away in fragile positions,
You've turned into dirt.
          How does it feel to be this vulnerable?

To be plucked from your home, and bought with dirt to be sold off to the husband who forgot his wife's birthday?

To be called 'beautiful', only to be left rotting away?
To sit beside a bed of 'beautiful' red roses, who think they'll be safe forever. To know they'll turn into you, you who has moulded into dirt.

These eyes fall on you now,
   they feel guilt,
      they feel remorse,
(they feel happy?)
          they feel like a murderer.

They run to drench you with water.

                           The poor white tulips,
                                              and the poor pink roses
                     will you be fixed from this phase of dirt?