I avoid those floral gangsters,
vainglorious Gladioli,
eugenically forced greenhouse Geraniums
with their large Shar-pei heads.
Garish claustrophobic chromatic mobs,
their heavy menacing over-cultivated smells.
Charles Darwin, thought these latter-day
angiosperms as:
“an abominable mystery.”
They are life-forms born of missing links,
genetically modified to eat oxygen,
perhaps out of our human brains?
Dogs and cows
are immune to their deleterious charms,
but we who are drawn to color and form,
sniff them out, as if they were hard drugs.
O you Peony, overgrown Day Lily,
you seemingly
innocuous bunches of Mums,
I see you, you smug and pretty enticers,
you mesmerizing Rasputin's!
I cringe, hold my breath,
reluctantly
bring those heady eye-catchers home
to my darling,
who waits for yet more perfumed
love letters.
Early morning
winter breeze
finds me
wading waist deep
in murky water
where
in the darkness
enticers precisely
placed wait
unwearyingly
to execute their master's
will knowing
from the easter heavens
they will come
in free flight
sounding
a characteristic note
hunting
for mates
while sun's rays rain
among trees
illuminating
hunter-green heads
poised bodies
until
a slight movement
barrel raised
twitched finger weighing
heavily on
aimed weapon
relaxes and pulls
releasing
deafening thunder
then
utter silence
scattered feathers,
Mallards fly no more.
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