"greenhouses" poems
To girls who dream of being fairy princesses: turn your
balconies into paradise greenhouses, and every
night sing each of the Thumbelinas
to sleep. Frost's flowers crowd beneath my fingers, the
young moon peaking in. I dare not invite you again -
your mind exploded into a nebula last time you saw
so many lights. My tiny Thumbelinas have gotten
married, with Thumbelinas of their won. I kiss
their frostbitten flowers awake. I promised. Blue
fingertips have become a norm, a childhood
reminder of a wish for blue blood. It thaws
outside. Wee Thumbelinas weep. The ferns
unfurl. My lullabies make plants awaken, not from the
beauty, but of dying loyalty.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 5:33 PM UTC
Just imagine
If instead of gasoline
We had cars that ran on batteries
Or steam
From water that is free
And those skyscrapers
In your local city center
Instead of banks focused solely
On making money
Were eighty story greenhouses
We'd never go hungry
I have a friend
Afraid of overpopulation
How can I explain?
Man can do anything
And instead of coal
And dinosaur bones
We discover potential
Of unlimited energy
I know we can
If we don't worry about the profit involved
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
It’s windy here
but there is no use worrying for the newly sprung greenery
or small chipmunks already awoken from a long winter
because this wind comes every year to dry out the soggy April soils
it takes some lives just emerging from the earth but
we need it so we can finally break ground and wake up our gardens
there’s this thing in agriculture called hardening off
when you grow seedlings indoors they aren’t accustomed to the harsh climate outdoors
they need to be hardened off
slowly introduce them to the winds and cold beyond green glass
gradually and then all at once
just like how the spring comes every year
it may feel like a sudden drop of heaviness on your chest
but you are hard and strong just like new seedlings
and you will survive the storm
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
Train, train, bus is late.
Boiled and delicate in sun,
someone sings. I wait.
Beside greenhouses,
a gold field twinkles, endless.
I think of Steinbeck.
Crowding, reaching out,
nettles have claws here, and eyes.
Is my mind slipping?
I cry, all messy,
happy tears. His words show me
I am not useless.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 6:59 AM UTC
We grew the earth, grew it around us and grew into it.
We grew into pairs of shoes after pairs of shoes
and we grew into our names.
We learnt to tie the laces of our shoes
and to tie our tongues around our names,
and the names of other things, other people,
and around other people's tongues.
We planted our cultures, cultivated them,
and they blossomed into traditions
and stereotypes and generalisations and rituals.
We broke in our shoes, broke the ice,
broke our voices, broke promises.
We broke glasses, hearts and bones.
We built hierarchies, looked up, looked down, bowed down.
We broke down into dictatorships and demonstration.
We found solutions like democracy
and diplomas and delegated.
We fixed fountains and freight trains
and falling trees in the forest and faucets that leaked.
We formed partnerships, made promises,
pledged to parties for both politics and both parents.
We made marriage and then we annulled, we divorced.
We fabricated the faiths that we fed on.
We invented stopwatches, reality television,
pedicures, lampshades, philosophy,
greenhouses, dictionaries, exclusivity,
feng shui, hand-holding, ****** medication,
street art, lawsuits, lingerie, car boot sales,
snow days, karaoke, comics, psychics,
boarding schools, toast, baseball, psychiatry,
bird-watching, plaid, research, stag nights,
slasher movies, salads, and interventions.
We wanted and we wished and we waited
and we wanted for more.
We were growing faster than we invented.
We were outgrowing ourselves
and our earth
and our shoes
and our names.
We forgot what we had found and fixed and formed.
We broke down and went broke.
We are waiting to invent a new way we can fix ourselves.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 8:43 AM UTC
Snow piles up against the walls, but thin clothes are all they wear
As the boy gardens within the greenhouses behind the school,
Red, bright tomatoes slipping out of his fingers, and popping into his mouth
That grins at the bursts of sweetness.
Inches from him, the man by one month pretends not to glance his way
Instead shifting through the bristling leaves to claim breakfast’s zucchini.
He would complain at the theft if the tomatoes weren’t everywhere
Making bland meals of packaged rice and canned beans a savory impossibility.
It isn’t like little indulgence will take away all of the red little briberies,
The secret keys to a reluctant community spreading its arms wide months after the pair stumbled in.
The man scowls, and the boy glances up
Not hiding his interest like his companion.
The solution to anger is always tomatoes,
So the next slip of fingers is against the man’s lips
As he bites down, the sweetness pops away mild irritation in the flavor of surprise.
Neither gives in to smiles, but their shoulders brush more than once as the tension seeps out with the heat into the snow.
Aug 11, 2019
Aug 11, 2019 at 1:18 PM UTC
in the la summer,
the heat doesn't whisper
it swells
and the hottest of the places
were the buses
big greenhouses on wheels
but i rode them,
for i had no car
and if i did
it would've been stolen
even though
i moved away from hidden hills
and now lived
on the face
of the sun
after a while,
i found my own
ways to rebel
drink gin out of
my water bottle
on the trip back home,
sit in the elderly
and handicapped
section
and that was what i was
doing when she entered the
bus
she was obviously ancient
and walked with a cane
so of course i moved to the side
as she passed me
the first thing i noticed
other than her skin that was almost purple
was the tattoo of the number
7
across her cheek
and no, this wasn't a young
woman
not the type to spend late nights
recording raps
for soundcloud in the back
of a crack house
we looked through each other for a
second,
and then she said to me
do you see it?
i shook my head
i didn't know what she
even meant
then she extended her hands
and still, nothing
was there
do you see it, she said again
i said no
she sighed
i have so much to tell you,
young woman
so much you need to know
i nodded
because when a crazy
old woman says things like that to you
you nod and smile
so much you need to know
her eyes were misted over
like lakes in the winter time,
cream in the bowl of
a tabby cat
we sat in silence
for a good while,
and then she looked at me again
in the summer, back home she said
when we left school
me and my friends would go drinking
there was a place called the golden shovel
and they had a huge pool table
me and mary would play, smoke cigarettes and
listen to jazz
it was the only time i
felt like i was alive
but when the cops came
mary was there, and i wasn't
they shot her dead
they said the bar was a hideout
for everything good and black
that my mother told me i should stand for
seven died,
and they said the golden shovel
was used to dig graves
i got this last year
she raised a long, peeling finger
to her cheek,
pointing at the seven
the bus ground to a halt as she
put her finger down
i looked at her
this is my stop
she said
before giving me a folded piece of paper
this is a poem i wrote
i took it and opened it, but by the time i
read it, she was already gone
*We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.*
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 5:59 PM UTC
When I was a little girl
no older than five,
I ran around our neighborhood,
my entire world at the time,
and helped
an aging neighbor
find her lost canary.
Then
when I was an older girl
still no more than eight,
I walked around our neighborhood,
small in retrospect,
carrying a baby bird left for dead.
Like a flower smothered by curtains,
wilting in the heavy shadows of my hands.
A year later,
I hold my finger out
to some bird perching in our tree,
free as dizzy dust
playing tag in the streaming light of day.
Now I’m left with
limp party streamers
swaying in the wind,
dancing with scattered daffodils
in gutted greenhouses
But when I curl my hands just right,
like a folding lotus,
I can still whistle
to them.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
Paradise is paved, everywhere
you can park in front of the door now
Pink walls and plastic flowers:
places where people like to be
Isn't it a shame that only afterwards
you open your eyes for what you had?
Paradise is paved, everywhere
you can park in front of the door now
All trees are saved, come, have a look
in the greenhouses of the museum!
It is not expensive to see them all
and you get bees and butterflies too!
There are greenhouses everywhere, no spots
on the apples, they won't even get brown
But last night the door slammed shut
and my beloved left in a big taxi
Sep 15, 2022
Sep 15, 2022 at 3:22 AM UTC
Light pooling on a surface
And breaking through in beams
Hundreds of passageways allowing this spectacle
To fill one room with sun
Shining, flickering dust particles
Batting against your skin
And this same air swollen with a thousand
beating insect wings
Which to the light all softly cling
Mashed in colours that the glass carved in
Flying shapes that join the buzz
And spiralling greens lumbering towards the sky
Resting, hunched and pressed against the glass
So shuddering with life they seem to sigh
Solid, light stone in colour
Is the current, wrapped around its base
River like and over flowing
Is this place
The great outside pointing in
Like a planet inverted or a doctors blue box
Tended, and yet containing a mind of its own
It is mightily over grown
And that is the way it should be
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 8:04 PM UTC
Chilly Autumn days
bring harsh winter winds
but the Roses still grow
in greenhouses
The greenhouse, a garden
grows Roses for the lucky lovers
In the dead middle of winter
just to come back two months later
As the Rosebud trembles
with each passing
it blooms and falls
to the hands of the deserving
but it ****** in self defense
much like the love
we all thought we'd cherish
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 11:14 AM UTC
formally arranged
cloyingly sweet
flowers of summer
greenhouses
candles lit
furniture gleaming
to honour the guest
resplendent
in Sunday best
lying cold and still
in satin lined luxury
head
on a comfortable pillow
tie and lips
properly knotted
eyes closed
with glasses perched
on the bridge of his
powdered nose
the veneer of eternal good health
courtesy of
pots and brushes of
paints and powders
waiting for friends to arrive
speaking in hushed voices
careful of disturbing
his slumber
he was a good man
if there's anything i can do...
they filter in
they filter out
tears love and platitudes
in equal measure
quiet music
devoid of life
and meaning
insipid tunes
of eternal rest
it's a blessing really
did he suffer
the blues of Brahams
chimes sound to signal
each new arrival
hugs and air kisses
solemn handshakes
sympathetic smiles
until there are none
she is left alone with him
looking down
a tear
falls on his face
a quick touch up required
before he rests in perfect quiet
but for the ticking of his watch
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 11:14 AM UTC
Like slides across a projector,
Unwanted memories sweep into my mind.
I wish I could go back to before,
Sat cross-legged with my pigtails swinging, listening to the grown ups lessons.
That was all before self-hatred tugged at my heartstrings,
And unworldly voices hissed in my ear that I wasn’t enough,
That I never would be.
The flashbacks are blinding me, they distort the image,
Twisting the reality.
How can a friend do that in the first place?
He was supposed to be my rock, my shelter from the storms inside my head.
I had built myself up knowing that he would be there to keep me strong,
Placing brick by brick around my heart, I deigned to think I was unbreakable.
They said not to throw rocks at greenhouses,
What do we do when the rocks begin hurling themselves at our fragile walls?
I want to grasp at the shards,
Holding my broken pieces so hard my palms drip with blood,
And cut down those who hurt me.
To fight back despite the tears streaming down my face.
I want to use the shards to rip the skin from my bones,
Destroy to create; erase myself to rebuild myself?
I will become stronger, I will never be so vulnerable.
Most of all, I want to rise from the rubble standing tall,
And learn to never again lay my foundations in shakey grounds.
Maybe then, I will have finally understood what the grown ups had taught me all those years before.
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018 at 11:32 AM UTC
the maroons and reds of your youth echoed in my heart creating a fire the aorta couldn't fathom
i watched you from greenhouses where flowers unveiled their beauty when you touched-
i can still see your eyes, dark, so dark where’d they go? why can’t i see the moon anymore?
me drinking cotton candy bullets as if you engraved my name in the single metal alloy
where is my name on your journals, i thought you said you loved me?
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 7:53 PM UTC
I had a dream
And in my dream I saw petals
Rose petals
That covered the floor of my room
Yet never wilted
No matter how many times they were crushed
And outside they masked the dirtiest of streets
Shades of red and pink and blue
I liked the blue the most
Id never seen them before
I saw where they came from
Roses growing from the highest of buildings
Greenhouses on the roofs of skyscrapers
And young men and women who plucked them
And let them rain to the masses below
The roses grew back quickly
Each time more vivid than the last
Until the streets were covered
Masked in red and pink and blue
After morning the roses stopped growing
And the men and women headed down
Where they stood amongst the petals that coated the ground
While everyone smiled and talked
And the sun shone brighter than the days before
As I walked along the trail of red and pink and blue
In my dream we all just watched
And felt the breeze from the street corners and rooftops
We sat on curbs and power boxes
Leaned out from windows and treehouses
Cars and shops
Bikes and offices
And together we watched the petals fall
Jul 26, 2017
Jul 26, 2017 at 2:41 AM UTC
Lily dear
my greenhouse queen
you were the spunkiest
little kitten I knew
and I hope that
maybe you're up
in the greenhouses of
Valhalla
or
heaven
or
paradise
and that you're doing
a good job keeping
the birds and mice away
and they don't have
automatic windows in
heaven
Lily
you don't have to worry
anymore.
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 11:03 AM UTC