"azalea" poems
Her name is Sarah
And between her legs
A flower.
A Begonia
Lush, Desirable, and Sweet
Beautiful.
Her name is Olivia
And between her legs
A flower.
A Bird of Paradise
Exotic & Captivating, Deep
Beautiful.
Her name Tanya
And between her legs
A flower.
A Calla Lilly
Intuitive, Dreamy, Refined
Beautiful.
Her name is Sumi
And between her legs
A flower.
A Dahlia
Grace, Strength, & Valued
Beautiful.
Her name is Diana
And between her legs
A flower.
A Moonflower
Delicate & Feminine
Beautiful.
My name is Hannah
And between my legs
A flower.
An Azalea
Fragile, Sweet, & Tender
Beautiful.
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 6:42 AM UTC
flower whose well fed,
which love and happiness was led
to dance with the wind
with the free mind
are either lucky, or unfortunate,
as the joy feed by their love ones,
could affect them nor normalize
it's their choice not to value things,
and to accept things as it is
you're either a rose or a sunflower,
you may be an azalea, but you're still a flower,
and it's your choice to be a vigorous flower,
or to be a wilted flower
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 11:11 AM UTC
The day you died I went into the dirt,
Into the lightless hibernaculum
Where bees, striped black and gold, sleep out the blizzard
Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
It was good for twenty years, that wintering --
As if you never existed, as if I came
God-fathered into the world from my mother's belly:
Her wide bed wore the stain of divinity.
I had nothing to do with guilt or anything
When I wormed back under my mother's heart.
Small as a doll in my dress of innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped necropolis
your speckled stone skewed by an iron fence.
In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south.
Six feet of yellow gravel cover you.
The artificial red sage does not stir
In the basket of plastic evergreens they put
At the headstone next to yours, nor does it rot,
Although the rains dissolve a ****** dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red.
Another kind of redness bothers me:
The day your slack sail drank my sister's breath
The flat sea purpled like that evil cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.
The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father -- your hound-bitch, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death.
6.6k
I returned home
on Palm Sunday
to find knockout roses
behind my brick mailbox
parading their first blossoms of spring.
I found candytuft
faded to green,
safeguarding scattered sprinkles of white
for me to view one more day.
Fallen pink petals from dogwood trees
fluttered through a whimsical ballet
to entertain me on a ballroom floor
of Kentucky bluegrass.
Dogwoods, azalea, and periwinkle are different.
Something happened
while I was away,
while I snapped photographs
of starfish captured by the sand
when evening tide
quickly rolled out to sea.
Blossoms opened
as other petals
faded and fell.
Fresh blossoms flowered
and youthful buds now greet the sun.
Did you care that I was gone
in the midst of your glory
to savor other beauties
different joys --
did you even miss me?
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 9:36 AM UTC
Beautiful pink azaleas are growing here and there,
A touch of surreal pink fills the forest air,
Tall, tall trees beautifully grow;
Oh I love this forest so!
Patches of light-green grass,
Grow here and there on the forest path,
Sunlight illuminates the air;
Birds are chirping without a care.
God created each azalea with love,
Just as He made the beautiful dove,
Evening sunlight dances in the west;
Shining in the Azalea Forest.
~Marian~
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 7:14 PM UTC
An early bloom has split the air
With the subtle scent of azalea
And jessamine, the fragrance
Of a youth lost
Between the vines of honeysuckle
That suffocated the boardwalk.
I remember the night we last
Sat together beneath the summer sky,
And the purple torrents that crept,
Like death, ever closer.
We used to watch them and wonder
If the drops would reach out to kiss
Our troubled heads, or if the wind
Would blow them south to Savannah
Like lost balloons.
And when we walked out
Onto the dock to watch the reds swirl
Just beneath the salt marsh skin,
We saw Hydra rise to the surface
And swallow the day as easily
As time swallows an instant.
But the dark never bothered you-
No, you seemed to prefer it,
At least to the flashes of lightning
That oft slipped between the evening clouds.
But this winter bloom, soon, will fade
Leaving nothing left for May,
And only these memories of life
And love will last.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 5:19 PM UTC
Here are my eyes
my fried eggs
teal lily-pads floating
on white albumen.
Here are my elbows
like deformed peaches
my knuckles the peas
wrist corn on the cob.
Here are my teeth
my frosty Stonehenge
a ring of slabs
solid halibut.
Here are my ankles
four gobstoppers
cracking as rocks
under her size-five feet.
Here is my nose
fastened to my face
the garbage chute
meets hoover hybrid.
Here are my knees
two wrinkled potatoes
mashing in their sockets
as waves crumble on me.
Here is my hair
my straw candyfloss
unlike her buttered popcorn
curly-wurly waterfall.
Here are my tonsils
squashy strawberries
wedged at the back
of the cave I once made.
Here are my lips
azalea-pink sweets
flecked with salt
from our slice of sea.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 2:46 PM UTC
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
on this fine, lovely day
and you - Oh, you came
shouting at me
and you threatened to call
for the men and the servants
to give me a beating
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
and you started beating me
and you struck me on the chest
with your soft left hand
and then you let it slide down
And then you pounded me on my shoulders
with your gentle fists
and then you let them slide down
And now we are in this azalea dance
O this impromptu Dance of Azalea
between you and me
Your hand in mind
You in mock-aggression
and I now in complete realization
O this improvised Dance of the Azalea
just you and me, as we go round
and round
And what the end in your eyes?
I see, I see, I see it in your eyes –
a quiet corner below the rocks
a gentle spot, softened by grass and flowers
Oh you teach me this Dance of Azalea
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
and you teach me the art of love
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 6:47 AM UTC
the azalea grew there
twenty years,
its grey body now
but scratchy bones,
browned blossoms
to ponder
until someone with courage
pronounces it over
cuts barren spines down,
and mulches the ground
with faded smiles
aged between pages
found saved in a shoebox
string-tied tight in darkness
will we still want spring
when we remember
our missing fuchsia
or discover
a new color to admire,
forget it ever was,
as we’ve manged
to forget laughter
in passionless winter
Sep 12, 2010
Sep 12, 2010 at 5:29 PM UTC
There it was in the middle of nowhere
All grown up with wisteria vines
In the summer when the wisteria would bloom
It looked like a beautiful fairytale
Daffodils once grew beside the concrete porch
And azalea bushes too
Forsythia grew near the concrete walkway
It's yellow blooms I used to pick
In bouquets for my Mom in springtime
Two or three bushes bearing white flowers
Once grew beside the house too
Inside it looked Victorian
Even though it was built
In the 1940s or 1950s
How surreal and dreamlike
It did look inside and out
Even though when I saw it
It looked like repairs were a necessity
The floors needed to be torn down and replaced
The house was in dire need of electricity
And in want of being cleaned and organized
Bags of trash and other things
Needed to be sorted through
The house needed a new roof and ceiling
The ceiling and roof were falling through
Some of the floors were collapsing
Or they would crumble if you tried to put
Even one of your feet on one of the brittle floors
Yet that was my favorite home of all
And I miss you since you were torn down
Just last summer
It seems longer or shorter in some ways
In other ways it doesn't
Even though I never lived even a day
Inside of your comfortable hominess
My Mother and her sisters and parents did
My Dad courted her inside those very walls
Which were torn down just last summer
I wished I could have lived inside those walls
Replaced only what needed to be replaced
Keeping as much of you as I could
But you were destroyed
And I never had a chance
*Oh, how I miss you,
Dear little rustic country house
Which was like a home
And felt like home inside*
~Marian~
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 9:19 PM UTC
More a French shave than five o'clock shadow,
the young artist's way of backing off,
announcing danger, an air of the unexpected,
as the King snake has evolved to feign the Coral.
Yet, where camel hair touched canvas calm,
where quintessential light met quotidian ennui,
not the advertised blackened rose or orchid,
rather the sizzle, the honeyed-heat of azalea.
Each stroke portended floral intifada,
pastel yellows and oily greens igniting
upon a fired-umber background,
threatened to melt the easel into tar.
I stood gape-jawed, nodded approval,
eyeing the second creation within a single flower.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 8:25 PM UTC
Little azalea
on the corner;
You gave me quiet joy
year after year.
I promised you;
vaguely, as I scampered past
that one day I would snap your picture,
crop it just so
press you in a tender frame
and adorn you
above the fireplace
or in the gentle gazebo
watching as we sip lemonade
and murmur about the weather.
But you have withered
and your buds no longer clasp the dew.
I told you that it was no matter;
that the picture will always live
in my mind.
Yet my memory fades
and I can't even recall
that subtle twist of your fresh limbs
and what was that shade of pink?
I must confess to you
that in the Spring
I will plant a little azalea
above your cracked, buried, splintered bones
and scamper past to hang a dimestore sketch
of some nameless azalea
in the gazebo.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 8:46 AM UTC
Across town, there’s no across. It’s just the town.
The dogs being fed by master, master toys,
Makes dogs bend, cower, quiver, then shoots dog
Out of the bow. Dog gnaws air through gritted fangs,
Finalizes his stupidity, gives up on his own self-confidence,
And lets it roar with a hand up his ***
The pigeons coo, cluck, **** fly,
Coo, cluck, **** fly,
Coo, cluck, **** fly.
Foxes run around the yard chasing tails,
Motives based in circles,
Saving slowing down and puking for death
as they Yap like pups.
Master watches from a high gallery
of Windexed windows so clean,
That you can see master’s muscles tightening as master laughs.
happiness and darkness.
Cars, trains, automobiles,
Flying machines, high ideas, fulfillment,
Continuation, carbon and all things irrelevant,
Master loves you.
In town, Pop tells the kids he’s on his way,
Mama shatters into a million brilliant pieces,
And Grandad’s sigh comes out his mouth with the care of a habit.
The kids are corralled into the basement to play,
mess with each others genitals, and put on azalea dresses
And heavy suits with black ties.
With all the venom of moths
They let their little mouths flutter in the dark,
as Mama and Poppa hurl everything they can.
Master gets drunk on equilibrium,
High on acid, perks, dipped bud,
Brushes teeth with alcohol
And spits out his/her teeth in the morning.
Way after the dogs were put to bed to tuck their tails in their legs,
The foxes following suit, the pigeons in the middle of the mess, somewhere.
Mom, Pop, Kids, Grandad, finished talking in low voices around 11:16 pm.
As they shredded the charade, ashamed at all its pieces,
Their mouths watered; I have no hope.
Across town, it’s not a town,
It’s a random house.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 10:39 AM UTC
The blooming of the Western
Azalea is
emergence into womanhood!
The inevitable burst of
color from bud, that
once released-
cannot endure the contrast,
cannot linger in the
putrid air
between us- a film
covers her pink blush.
Everything returns
to a uniform grey.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 9:03 PM UTC
Ornaments of olive eyes
Wading sleepy through starry skies
A silver window of heavens light
Sing me to sleep this winter night
Azalea, lay your flowers in the snow
As I lay, the wind shivers aching bones
Waiting calm for lower tides
I etched a poem in the stone
Rusty sheets, broken boards
Broken folds we call our homes
Azalea, the prettiest face
As I wait, for the dead to come back home
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
It was a cool morning in January
when I cracked my blinds
and peaked at the world I knew.
Bright breasted robin, perched in the azalea,
watched me dress and curse this life.
He did not sing, did not so much as move
as I dragged my feet and clutched my chest.
Bright breasted robin, soaring the skies,
always came back to make sure
each morning my lights turn back on.
He watched me tie myself to my bedpost,
hide away the razors, suffer through headaches
because I convinced myself I lost the aspirin…
It wasn't until a warm March morning
that I could open my blinds
and gaze upon the robin that sang me awake.
A nest, perhaps two feet from the glass,
perched on the limbs that clawed a child's dreams,
sat the bright breasted robin and three others:
A choir, A reminder, A hope.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 11:10 PM UTC
Father, I saw you last night
In a twilight dream you strolled through the streets of Shiraz,
followed by a fluttering butterfly
Passed the mosques and minarets,
turquoise blue and blood red
The cypress trees and poets' beds wept for you -
and their tears dropped like pomegranate seeds on the dry desert sand.
Father, I saw you yesterday
In a dusk-lit dream you walked through the streets of Baltimore,
followed by a fluttering butterfly
Passed the Hopkins dome and Ravens' home,
steamed crab orange and Oriole black
The patients in hospital beds cried to you -
and their tears fell flat on the soft O.C. sand.
Dear friend, Baba,
Aman, Vafa
We see you every day in an azalea's bloom
You live on in each grandchild's heart
You give our lives hope
In the early spring sun and the late autumn moon,
you breathe again
In your Akhtar's sweet smile, in Taraneh's kind style,
your heart beats again.
Father, I felt you last night
In a deep, dark dream you spoke to me
and with an angel's hands, dried my tears for me
Then hugged me with great joy,
and I read you this poem -
To my father
From his boy.
-Arman Taheri (7/10/2010)
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 12:29 PM UTC
i had this dream that they
had thrown me into a hole,
and by a feat of bravery I
had managed to escape,
out the window and through
the azalea bushes--
but I returned with a raging
hatred, an unquenchable vengeance
that manifested in red clay that
settled over the creases in my palms
and poured south in waves shaped
like old angers and great mountains
giant bison that snorted and plowed
forth--
but I was the bison and I was the clay,
greeting visitors with crushed eggs, yolk
weeping through my knuckles, the voice
of a hundred i'm sorrys creaking through
the speakers in the living room,
and i'm wiping blood from the meat in the kitchen
on my dress with the yellow fade near the hem
telling visitors yes, come in
yes, come in
when they shouldn't
and I shouldn't
but I could shake the earth, father, I'm so angry.
I could shake the earth.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
A week and a half, a year before ship sails
Azalea path was already paved
Soon I found someone in the same state of mind as me
All insane of astrology, all insane of metaphors
There's this delirium episode going inside of me that made me
slash what carried me far to see if I could survive worse
even tried the continuum oblivion
till I dare my hands to drive me in to an atom collision
There are times when it wasn't all about wars
I spent it combusting to few places
When and where snow is an empire usurped by crippled leaves in the fall.
Fall, fall, fall
It was him who falls and leaves.
One night, or one day, I don't quite care
but that is when I got away
I ran with flames not yet ignited
I barricade the commotion out with flimsy threads, all I can think
Didn't even thought threads spread flames (if it's ignited)
(Well now it's ignited)
And someone caught up in it
I can still hear him even now
*That's the end of my life
The rest is posthumous*
talking me up
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 11:38 PM UTC
tiny gaping mouths in crowded nest_ red azalea flowers
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
The azaleas came early this year,
flashing pink in the spring
against their own unruly green.
My dog pants heavily, bounding
across the yard, chasing his
shadow from the azaleas to
the Japanese Maple and back.
Tired, finally, he scratches his
back against the bush, scraping
against the limbs, deforming the
bush, shaking the blooms down.
I yell at him to stop but he ignores me.
He is young. He knows only the joy
of the moment, the scratching of that
itch. If only he could understand that
their beauty is frail and annual...
I want to tell him, but I don't
speak dog and he doesn't listen
anyway, so I lure him inside with
a treat and leave the blossoms
until next year.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 8:15 PM UTC
they told me
“poetry is dead”
in hope that when I found it I might leave it in the grave
in hope that a journey might not begin
in hope that I was
and, dying, I found poetry between
where the azalea knots its white crown and drops
between a hole in sunlight and the moon, where
between the living and the dead
a broken vase of its ashes sift
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 2:13 PM UTC
neon blue motel room,
Oroville, California-
how sweet to feel
warm air again.
can’t seem to fill
in these postcards,
words
spent on
the wrong meanings
all these years.
for what it's
worth, I chose
a 17th century
Flemish painted
azalea stamp for you,
stuck it in
the corner
where I've been
hovering,
poised-
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 12:28 AM UTC
The red waves of an azalean sea,
Foaming in crimson and pink and ruby,
Break on the soft green grass shore before me,
Behind them / Looming / Snow capped / Mount Fuji,
Oh, how much I wish right now to be,
Surrounded by these florid waters,
To swim into the painted scene and see,
To exist as colours—in eternity.
Nov 9, 2020
Nov 9, 2020 at 9:19 AM UTC