Floating as a Taraxacum caught
On a slow mischievous breeze
I found you my little dandelion

© Edward Cousins

“It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.”

William Garretson was the gardener of 10050 Cielo Drive, in Los Angeles, a summer house rented by Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. He lived in the guest house on the property. On August 9th, 1969, members of the Manson family visited the residence and brutally murdered all the inhabitants, as well as Garretson’s friend Steve Parent. Garretson claims he had no knowledge of the murders that night. He is the only survivor of the Tate Murders.

your screams sounded
like fiberglass breaking
an almost impossible noise
like a hemorrhage at midnight
i was walking through the garden
and i swear
i heard the neat click
when he severed the phone line
if only i had known

i have thought up one hundred scenarios
in which i saved your life
but there is only one
when i don't
and every night i try to justify this reality
because i could have sworn
the sound of their boots
on the steel fence
was the telephone
ringing

when they saw the headlights
swerve over the lawn
steve was as good as dead
shattered like a lightbulb
under pressure
four shots pressed into his forehead
a candid bullet kissed him faceless
his absence was
a tell tale piquancy of slaughter
i lay in bed that night
and turned my face to the wall
when i heard the screams

tell me i reek coward
say the raw red skin of my knuckles
shaved away from the foundation of my raised veins
as i sat through another police interrogation
are nothing compared to the red poppy
that blossomed in the center of his chest
call me callous
but i will never forgive myself
for trimming the flowers
that sat innocent on the coffee table
in the middle of a mass grave
all i can say is
i was just the gardener

i found her
blooming on the living room floor
the baby cut
weeping from her umbilical cord
still attached to mother and father
by a rope traveling from neck to neck
thorny slices of fetal skin
peppering the carpet
blood sprays still wet
were soaking into the wooden door
sadism comes in many
limp limbed contortions
but only one color
and i saw *HIS smile
carved in the cavity
of her stomach
i swear to god
i wish i could say
i didn't see it coming

i found the severed tendons
of his fingers
suspended in the eerie light
of the swimming pool
pruned like overripe plums
the remnants of his face
scattered across the driveway
like taraxacum seeds
their bodies all
hanging like wilted stems
broken xylems hinged to sepals
by threads of sap
running down uprooted ligaments
there is not enough therapy in this world
to cure the silence in the garden
upon the aftermath of execution

the shapes of murders' footprints
left raised beds in my shoulder blades
manure smeared ***** across my lips
every flower i have ever planted since
has languished in the smell of your corpses
melded into the callouses
of my finger tips
i am just the gardener
and i am all broken anthers
petals shriveled, toxic
call me a survivor
but there is blood inside my filaments

I want to be like a dandelion
Full of color and patience
Waiting for the day to come
Where I'm free to fly away

The wishes of raindrops
led me to you -

a transparent pearl that
glistens on the petal of

a flower

teetering on the edges of
life, a kiss away from

falling

forgetting, forgotten in the folds
of earth

a ***** away from being dug
up, exposed like

a raw nerve. The calcium in
your bones

spread unevenly through
your spine

so that you must stoop
to touch me

I am a lion's tooth -
a flower blown on the whim of

a wish

a hopeless romantic who likes the chase. it’s something that become her habit—chasing someone, liking a man who doesn’t have feelings for her.

she craves for physical touch, yet pushing someone away who is trying to get close to her when she sees he’s interested in her too. she always assumes every guy only wants to flirt with her.

the standards she builds are so high. when someone is falling short of her expectations, she easily gets bored.

all she wants is a man who will be patient with her and understands her because she’s confused, she is not used to what she’s feeling right now.

she’s a flower who just starts blooming. a flower who is still learning how to handle a relationship and how to share herself, her soul and her heart physically and emotionally to someone.

Sunshine and Dandylions
its all a Bee needs

Taraxacum yellow
one of their favourite foods

Summertime glow
little hearts revved up to go!

I saw you
You think I wasn’t looking but I was
Staring as you gracefully weaved words through the air
I saw the fullness of your mouth as your secrets spilled forth
Landing like Taraxacum seeds on your skin, falling to the floor
I ran after you seizing them up and kept every one pressed to my chest
And pushed them one by one into my heart
I slipped into your shadow and quietly kept pace to avoid your detection
Picking up the pebbles from your dreams
Grasping at the feathers on your breeze
I waited there until you were asleep
Only then did I make myself known
Let you see my silhouette
Standing in front of you with my arms full
Asking you to love me.

I (a youthful sexagenarian)
can no longer quip being
a country boy at heart,
but me as urban cowboy,
I declare would never
so fuhgeddaboudit dear reader
nothing 'cept bucolic existence
laboring organic garden
harvesting fruits and vegetables
by the bushel and quart
constitute an appropriate start.

Don't get me wrong;
Every cell comprising
body electric of mine,
would yearn to prolong
and relish those bygone salad days,
whereat (R)oute (D)elivery #2 Level Road
also known as "Glen Elm"
or hundred acre wood,
when Mister Leiper and family
originally owned vast estate
(turn of twentieth century)
once awash, flush, and plush
with webbed wide world

analogous to miniature Hindu Kush;
one of the great watersheds of Central Asia
forming part of vast Alpine zone
that stretches across Eurasia east to west;
and runs northeast to southwest;
and divides valley of the Amu Darya
(the ancient Oxus River)
to the north from
Indus River valley to the south.

Rather than complain about mein kampf
and hard times,
which ain't no Christmas Carol,
fraught with the battle of life
amidst great expectations,
yours truly much prefers
crafting poetic verses
precariously perched on edge of chair
clicking Macbook Pro keyboard;
Every now and again taking stretch
to access excellent outlook
from powerfully pointed bedroom window.

Thus yours truly doth
poetically lightly kvetch
or tease out commonplace natural phenomena
nevertheless unremarkable flora and fauna,
or maybe even a dog
and her/his owner playing fetch.

His immediate observation when peering out
rectangular pane (more long than wide) of glass
constitutes plethora of dandelions
populates the greensward;
said wildflower proliferated nearly overnight,
cuz smattering yesterdays ago
Taraxacum officinale, the German "lowenzahn"
(which means "lion's tooth"),
and French "pissenlit"
Ligules the yellow “petals” of dandelion flower
carpeted the lawn, and quickly regenerated
soon after landscaping crew cut the grass.

A dandelion seed is the plant's mature fruit,
known as a cypsela to botanists,
and its parachute-like structure
known as a pappus.

The pappus develops
as calyx of each floret dries and matures.

There are usually 150-200 seeds per flower
and up to 10 flowers per plant.

Seeds can be dispersed long distances
by wind because they move in updrafts,
yet upon making landfall
scant number squarely take root.