Hollyhocks

it was a chorus line of hollyhocks against a crumbling red brick building that devastated my poem, they laid waste to the words you asked me to write, you said I would try to hurt you with my intent, my rhyme, I said your prejudice and ignorance were showing, like wearing a hooded down overcoat near the end of June you said 'fire away' and I asked if you knew why Bodhi-dharma left for the East, on the grand scale of conclusions high on a hill shepherds guard their flock from the thorn bush and the mountain lion, the fishers of men live down in the valley of the marketplace; you will not understand this poem and you'll go about your business blaming someone else for what you'll never understand until you can see inside the magenta and chestnut brown mid-summer hollyhock, bursting with painted ladies, hummingbirds and poems.