Phlox Linum,
            Phlox Linum,
            
           som satin south alyssum,
           vivace kiss
          
           weave violin wind ******,
           caress calendula
          
           bloom bow bagatelle
           bloom allegro
           linen Primrose!
        
            Phlox Linum,
            Phlox Linum,

There once was a girl called Goldilocks
Who lived in a forest filled with phlox
She did not to have a soul to play with
And in the forest she would often drift

She once became lost, the lonely, little girl
The one with the head full of golden curls
Panicked and scared, she came upon a house
But it appeared that everyone there was out

She helped herself to the food, cold and hot
She tried the chairs until one hit the spot
Too tired to try to make her way back
She hit the sheets to take a nap

Very picky was this lost, lonely tot
Some porridge was too cold, some too hot
Beds too soft or too hard to sleep tight
Only one she found that felt just right

Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear were soon back on arrival
After a long day of fishing for their survival
What? Who had their nose in each of their bowls?
Gone was one porridge that to the brim was full

And who had sat in and broke one of the chairs?
It looked like a human by some strands of golden hair!
Hunters? Oh, no! Could they be on the prowl?
The bears sniffed around and started to growl

Baby Bear was the first to see
The little girl catching some Z's
"Oh, cool!" exclaimed little Baby Bear
"Can we keep her? Can she stay here?"

They all came upon Goldilocks all snug in bed
Papa Bear was now furious and began to see red
"And you call us animals!" he yelled loudly at her
"Who gives you the right?! Where are your manners?!"

Goldilocks woke up with an ear piercing shriek
Facing three hairy bears, she could not speak
Out the house she ran, far enough to see her home near
And that was the last that Goldilocks saw of those bears!

"She was just a scared, little girl", Mama Bear said to her spouse
"We could have stopped her and let her stay in our house!"
Papa Bear, disagreeing with her foolish trust,  swore
"**** it! I told you the last one out locks the door!!!"

"You begin feeding them...they are so clever
You'll never get rid of them. They stick around forever!"
Mama Bear refused to fight, for Papa Bear refused to bend
And that is all there is to the story. THE END!

Crickets that chirp all day and all night
Looking for love in their season
Overgrown fields rife with golden rod
The same as they are every year
Earlier sunsets we notice at mid-month
(Wonder where the summer went)
Cool mornings with fog
Still air with familiar scents
Bats from behind shutters
Pursue their flights at dusk
(If only we could fly with them)
Apples fall from trees, soft, little thuds,
Remind us of other late summers, and of gravity
Migrating birds eat honeysuckle berries
While a monarch spreads her wings
On white phlox

You made “you and I” not exist
And that’s kinda cool in an aesthetic sense
But when I ****** dry your essence
I could taste only me in your skin

You took the chord and chewed it
Tore it with your incisor and spit it in my teeth
Children of the gourd
Children of the gourd
We swim in eels’ flesh
We mix with organs gutted and bleached
From fish in a factory

My fingernail split the cuticle and fell
Curling into your ear
That all you hear of me is mine on a chalkboard
And in a dream my bones rotted
Dancing against your form and encasing you to me
That my touch is nothing but raw and unwanted
I popped your cornea into the pocket of my cheek
Stole your vision for only that of me
That such a vision is now irritating and blinding

Lover lost I blew you away like dust to the wind
Every light popped and sizzled to show mercy
Then I whispered “to the pain” and cupped a vial of our blood
You made “you and I” not exist
But you drank deep until you drained me
And I could taste only me in your skin.

On old world wings you've come
through ages gracing wilds
In gardens you hover, humming hawk moth
seemingly like a bird
With beating wings you sing to honeyed flower stalks
a proboscis long for drinking up
phlox and penstemon

I

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

II

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that ***** -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

III

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

IV

And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

V

Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'

VI

And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

VII

And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .

The Mountain keeps all secrets. Crusted lichen on timeworn boulders. High altitude longing for alpine daisies. Carefree blossoms, long ago plucked, gone to seed, restless in the fertile ground.  Wildflowers bloom shortly sweet, fleeting paintbrush to layered canvas. Fairy slippers lost on crumbling doorsteps. Glacier lilies pressed between avalanched pages.  Forget-me-nots in forgotten blue hollows. The common harebell feels anything but common when seen through a lover's eyes. Forest tiger, your bulbs taste bitter. Purple lupines sage with fuzzy-leafed logic.  Fireweed, *****, unadorned, eternally reaching. Lousewort, spreading phlox, leave this scarlet alone.  Listen to Indian Henry, it's bad luck to trample what is sacred. The devil dreams behind steep and sheltered walls. Keep to the Wonderland, bypass this Trail of Shadows.  Seek ancient hunting grounds, steadfast shelter in the wooded clearing.  There is no pearly everlasting along these old trails.  Paradise lost may never be regained.

On old world wings you've come
through ages gracing wilds
In gardens you hover, humming hawk moth
seemingly like a bird
On beating wings you sing to honeyed flower stalks
a proboscis long for drinking up
phlox and penstemon

In her spring, I peer at her ground and I see,
petit, it's branches reaching the sky
and I know, her cold spell has vanished for me,
its green, how its branches boughed and sighed--
Little summer, how its heat brings to bear:
I swear, it flowers to spite her cold heat.
And pink! To rival her sunshine, it dared,
and noontide, its blossom shrivel so weak.
And how I have noticed, her leaves have gained brown,
I grab the seeds, I will spread them all over,
I'll hate you 'till april mem'ries are bound,
Like it gained its laurels, to shed them cold.
When april comes, I'll love you again.
Time she is my enemy-- but a friend.

(April’s full moon)

~

her beauty always
catches me unprepared
her reflection is
a poet’s muse
and as so oft before
tonight again, i pause
and wonder long...
"who else, my love,
is watching you?"

~

post script.

along with watching April’s moon grow full these last few nights, Sally’s poem is tonight my muse. thank you, dear sister, and friend!
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1922140/one-full-moon-night/

**“Full Pink Moon – April This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring.”

Explain Krieg und Krise.  Remember Nanjing.  Hand twist nasturtium, trim Elijah in no other language but your own.  Delicious, decked against scurvy despite punishing days world unwraps, made available to voracity, where would you build, on what day?  Perfection unable to sit still comes towards ambush as peasant night squeaks to the border.  Chanticleer in linear e phlox stammers discretely, hammers combination, blends tonality.  Gravid as brook trout, orangerie cascades kanji.  Bucolic spasm shimmering, weeping runes a la Giverny become Cycladic, veers off color’s lambent arsenal.  Caustic repeats, Gatling interferes, hope bails, song recants.  A Zebedee in Flemish hue cracks *** luck, lets out gurgle.  But in good fortune, peaches to daisies, Abigail to titmouse, family is raised.

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square. . . .

Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of dusk are deep —
Earth takes her children’s many sorrows calmly
And stills herself to sleep.

Sometime before dawn
You curls in my dreams
And got me smiling
Like a promenading butterfly
Who aback;sights a garden phlox

I whirl enchanting on my cot
Until I hear the **** crow
And plug the melodrama
Though I wish relentless
I wing my arms like a baby
Thinking about you

I don't know how you do that
Or does it
But it seems you're an adept
Or probably a witch
To have cast such a spell on me

Ton!Ton! I picks my cellphone
And reads your messages
Thought as much,is her;the witch
Who incessantly sparks my match-sticks
And brighten my day

But am cowed,and wholly gobbled
Whenever I reminiscence about the oratories
"Nothing lasts forever"
So now tell me!
Your days and times
The protractions of your sojourn
And let me know"Witch

Though I'm hog-tied for your premium
I'm hog-tied for your rob too

Infatuated by a witch
©Historian E.Lexano

The ripening berries
Summer's last blaze
when her breath is of jasmine
and phlox is her sigh
Let me dream then,
of summer
and float through the haze
peaceful breath
bed of poppies
ceiling of blue sky


Let me float
like a feather
in the arms
of the breeze
Let me drift
like a leaf
on a tide, upstream
with the murmur of water
the soft hum of bees
in a garden
in peace
in sleep
in a dream


Send me love's angels
to watch at my bed
golden of voice
and silver of wing;
two at the far corners
two at my head
with my dreams
all of heaven
when softly
they sing


Send me a light
that can never grow dim
love, like a candle
to lighten my heart
empty my mind
of each worry and whim
and the ghosts
of nights demons
that tear me apart


Till I float
like a feather
in the arms
of the breeze
and drift
like a leaf
on a tide, upstream
love make me wise
through life's cruelties
sleep dry my eyes
make me still
let me dream.

Done, ends stitched in a seam—set
to be worn over yourself.
A stain so bright, you sparkle.
Too far forward to flip. The sipper,
the straw, the soda. Bleeding ink
every blink, but still brimming.
Ripped apart like a rainbow.
A love letter to life still
in the works.

So dead you’re divine.
Only visible in the love-light.
Weird as a plant that bites
the bully, as a phlox
sprouting through sand.
Wingless like wind, fin-less
like a fluid. Lost but
listening to your own heart.
Found.

Seven long years has the desert rain
  Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
  I have thought of thy burial-place.

Thought of thy fate in the distant west,
  Dying with none that loved thee near;
They who flung the earth on thy breast
  Turned from the spot williout a tear.

There, I think, on that lonely grave,
  Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
  Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.

There the turtles alight, and there
  Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
  Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.

Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
  All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
  Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.

In the dreams of my lonely bed,
  Ever thy form before me seems;
All night long I talk with the dead,
  All day long I think of my dreams.

This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
  This long pain, a sleepless pain--
When the Father my spirit takes,
  I shall feel it no more again.

It takes some courage to eat a legume's fruit
knowing what is known of each poisonous part
of the locust (although the flowers may be frittered).

What's pushing up through the leaf litter
before the canopy is out, past the stone fence?
Wild lily-of-the-valley is my guess.

Of 140,000 soldiers, less than 1% have considered
the fruit of the desert surprisingly good and varied.
They have stayed and married women who are crows.

My own land is a land of wetlands but we too
have crows. We have waited and waited for this election
and now we're divided into just two factions.

If everyone votes and every vote's counted there will be
nothing for either faction to crow about. All will be
well with the republic and in the world what will be will be.

What responsibility does a citizen bear
for participating in a war, blowing the roofs
off houses, exposing the beds and clean-swept floors?

Warriors at the gate, you will not run,
you will not bargain. Dig in deep, feet
overhanging the abyss, protect your children.

I poured water into the dry vase of garden cultivars -
snapdragon, phlox, bigonia, bluebell, mint -
and have they not rewarded me with their collective scent?

...the Word of God.



(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXXII)


Oh yes.  I wimper still oer Mum.  Care thence
In silence as ne words assuage nor bail
My soul, except the LORD's in sheer betrayl.
Orange kisses treetops, yellow nestles hence
In sidewalk cracks and dips, vines paint a sense
Of scarlet through the copse no phlox detail
Now, and lo, I submit a sonnet they'll
Not choose, remembring Mum last year--and whence?
I swear, the Word of God my home as twere,
Replies as through a parched land we ensue.
Grey hours rain drips oer, deep blue heavns we were
So fond of seeing twixt yellow Maples--do
Not have my ticket anymore.  In poor
Scuse I watch Pride and Prejdice.  Where are you?

16Oct16b

Hmm?



(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXXXVI)


Distracted, aye as wont.  With half a sense
Of yonder pinned to five small minutes' tale.
As bitter air looks out from blue skies' pale
Mien and the maples whisper of suspense,
Orange-kissed or flaunting yellow in defense,
Go count the florets:  seven pinks detail
The stoney passage is't?  Four whites.  How frail
Their stance now drier stalks rasp over whence.
Yes, phlox.  Do peony bushes change in tour
With dusky red leaves, how my niece points to
Lacrima's echo tangrine globes as twere
Hang from, and I peg hopes to Shaun as who
Does not laugh oft, I guess.  Tell me it's poor.
And count the days 'til I shall see him too.

22Oct16b

Phlox in a field leave a lovely smell in the air. Yet, the fragrance of them cannot compare to the scent on my pillow when last you were there...

©️

Milk approaches
the net of unforgivable schemes,
Dare to cross over
the border of 45 hundred
fingers; a sea of burning
skin.  A sigh falls from my lips
and white phlox follows
wherever I cast my seed.

This summer, as ever, there's much to do.
But only one or two things I want to do.

I told Alan that, like him, I'm never bored.
But today, like a teenager, I'm both tired and bored.

The long expanse of summer stretches forward. Alan plans
the next 2 years in advance, always moving forward. I can't plan

the next 2 hours, sitting on my ****, undecided whether
to clean the house, make a list of prospective donors, or check the
      5-day weather

forecast. Fires out west, hurricanes south, drought here
in the east where the garden phlox withers and the corn's stunted. We
      hear

prophecies of armageddon, doom, but humans may go on another
      thousand, million or billion years
undaunted. What is that to you. A day alone in your room and a year

are inexplicable. Now and then a vacation, baseball game, night of
      love.
A divorce, a death, a drouth. To survive and prosper we must love

all of it, insect infestations and world wars, cloud curlicues and square
      dances, work
and weekends off. Knowing the unknowable = never knowing how the
      world works.

There was a clearing in the darkening wood
Where my beauty would come to meet me
Blades and grasses of sentience in which I stood
Hummed therein a lyric of unequivocal destiny.

Tonight my beauty would find me
Even when crossing over the yellowing musk
Tripping through ivy's tangled eaves.
Reverberating seed and floating husk.

Even if it was terrified of the darkness,
Pinholes in the ceiling extending out of reach
Purging the tiger lily, weeping catharsis
Veins swelling within birch and beech

It would come, following trail and print
Drifting with cicada, down feathers of phlox
Treading across fragrant stems of peppermint
Into Fear's waters, Truth's rising equinox.

The sky was a wounded rabbit punctured through,
Crippled and limping across thinning treetops
Tracing spattered blood of evening dew
Breached forest's sharp edge and came to a stop.

Dense, wet footfalls swiftly soaked my spine
Impaling me with a realization consumingly remote
I only so much became the fireflies within the pine
That swayed my limbs and took my throat.

Crickets that chirp all day and all night
Looking for love in their season
Fields of goldenrod that stretch in all directions
The way they did when we were children
Earlier sunsets we notice at mid-month
That make us wonder where the summer went
Cool mornings with fog that burns off
And still air, infused with familiar scents
Bats that come from behind the shutters
To pursue their flights at dusk
(If only we could fly with them)
Apples falling from trees with soft, little thuds,
Reminding us of summer's end and of gravity
Migrating birds that eat the honeysuckle berries
While a monarch lights and spreads his wings
On the white phlox...

That's August up north

Why do we have disgust for dirt?
The simple thing that helps plants grow
Why do we say no to the black boy down the street?
And make him beg for forgiveness in exchange for his life
We say life is precious, but we **** those who we deemed unworthy
What's with the color brown that we associate everything with it as an abomination?
A color does not seem someone's worth and its not a personality
We say cops are the bad guys when in reality we all are
We search for equality, yet we separate ourselves from colored to white
And when the real war comes, all the faking of acceptance will come to an end and the guns will start rising
The equality that we all search for does not exist in a world as cold as this
But if we come together as people, no matter our color, we can bloom like Phlox and thrive no matter the weather
Let us accept the things that others deem useless, because there's always a worth, even in dirt
K.W.

The sun drenched darlings of every garden ,
gathered bright eyed ,
Gay and tinted as village lasses in their gingham gowns ,
spraying lovely brightness and flair in the red roofed cottaged towns.

Phloxes carry the garden through the dog days of summer ,
holding down the fort
until the asters and blazing stars come on board .
Such dainty and colourful picture the nature can paint ,
A keepsake, serene album so quaint !

© Mrunalini.D.Nimbalkar

She was a true daughter of the moon.
Finding energy and renewal in the Full Moon’s beams,
And the release of negativity from the New Moon’s dark energy.
There was nothing more spectacular than the sight of a gorgeous Blood Moon,
And once in a Blue Moon, she found herself at the ocean after midnight, bathing in all that soothed her weary soul - moonbeams and salt water.
The Harvest Moon reminded her that change was good,
And the beauty in a field of wild ground phlox restored her faith.
But the Wolf Moon was her favorite -
It called to the ravenous animal inside her,
and awakened her soul...

Creeping phlox blossoms, star-blanched,
crawl gently in choir in the thunder yard,
like soft fare for the silver river fee.

Linen immortelle, shadow-bleared,
knotted aegis against a raw, wracking world:
smeary cloth-stalks lengthen duskily.

Rain-pinked palm, sloe-blotched:
tawny token of revival from those
who idle beneath rude thunderheads.

Come all ye winter brigands,
Strip these tainted fairland woods
Of their baubles and wares.
Take what plump fruits remain
In glistened fists and bind,
Bind the spruce tightly -
Such prideful beasts these trees.

Come mock these captive summers,
Taunt them white in the forest,
White in the glade and fled,
To the shrill and fluted wind,
To crackling beats on wire and limb.
Such a wagged and giddy pilfer,
Leave them lap on brittle leaves.

Come ye winter brigands,
Strip the burdened hoards,
The cone and gray gem juniper,
The blackened berry, the wild blue phlox,
The painted trillium stem.
Vanity in such soft profligate pendants -
What need have we of these?