I thought when I'd turn to moss,
- when i had left myself to root.
When I had laid me down at last,
Than I'd not miss you endlessly.
I did not know I'd find my soul
dancing lithely in a flame.
A spanish dancer I've become
flickering my reds and blues.
I jump from wick to match to ash
and dance my saraband, contritely.
Yet I thought that when I sighed so lastly
undone would neatly fold away
like origami boutonniere
I'd be pressed between your book
something that you'd heave to shelf
and only gather dust and time.
Regrets, it seems, don't like
to die. So
I'm left haunted by my haunting.
And had I known before I wept
that remonstration without intention
was leaving all the notes unsung
by leaving catching in my voice.
I am singing in the mountains, madly
about what does not skip in the fields
and what does not drip from the sapling...
For love does neither frolic gayly
as much endures beyond repentance.
and I am left, on pebble shores
forever with my sharp withholdings
Stubbornly I held onto them,
Now they cut my like small diamonds.
I am glass and they are listless
wasted, mindless, pointless prattle.
Remind me fresh our penalties for
All the love we do not spend.

Sahn
7/01/2014

Have  I ever told you- I still have your boutonniere?
Perched proudly upon my poetry books~
All of the memories of "Us" may have been stored-
hidden-
in a box solely for those memories
but that flower stands proudly,
untouched from the date- May 3rd

Fragile as it may be ( now dehydrated )
It remains a symbol of our love -
Filled with beauty, and fantasy-
but now dried out-
yet I still have it

Should I throw it away?
Forget and abandon it-
Or keep it as a memory?
and risk it growing on me
The longer it stays
the more questions arise...

Do you still have yours- Or is it gone forever?
*Do withered flowers lose their beauty?

Some would pick at the petal of the rose
And say he loves me, he loves me not
I suppose.
But feelings are so much more
Than uprooted flowers.
It is more than you and me
It is ours

That rose could be part of a bigger collection
A wedding bonquet
When we love into each other’s eyes
And say I love you forever and always
That rose can always be called
To be a boutonniere men pin to their suits
Standing as the best of men.

The rose can be laid down
As the flowers people give as we walk from the reception.
As husband and wife.
That rose can be put up
As decorations that celebrate everlasting to forever in a halled room.
Finally that rose can be taken off
After all of the festivities of the day
When garments are laid aside
Still smelling of perfume made from dug-up roses.

clay boutonniere

in a kiln.

plague doctors in

beaked masks--

retrieving the semblage

of a carnation.

with golden sporks

the size of spatulas.

split three & a half ways.

prattling beaks.