My Garden Colonised
In spring, I worked so very hard
To make a garden of my yard
I planted seedlings, but alas
A hoard of pests arrived en masse
From all the pests a plant can host
I really hate the greenfly most
I wash him off with soapy suds
And still the blighter chews my buds
Then there’s our friend, the sneaky snail
Who leaves behind a silver trail
To show the world where he has been
But leaves no seedling to be seen
Then yesterday as I peruse
Behind the dust bin, out of use,
a nest of ants had made their home
And how those fellows love to roam
While leaning on my spade I thought
How all my work had come to nought
Should I just slab the whole damn thing
But then….
I’d miss the dawn of spring.
I'm planting my hopes in silent passion
A harsh winter salad I fear
with greenfly and spider
I'm waiting for perpetual rain
and to fathom the reasons why?
you left me furlong in the mud
blonde and ruthless ,
telling me something I didn't know
C7
No bigger than a drop of blood on a finger
pricked by a thorn, it marches along
the stem of a rosebush; a Grenadier guard
in its crimson uniform, with seven spots exactly
splashed across its coat. Not a random
flick of a paintbrush, but like a soldier’s
chevron; its rank, its classification.
It rises ready to do battle with the greenfly
that hide amongst soft petals until
confronted with my outstretched fingers
onto which it clambers. I hold it aloft
and blow a soft breath across its tiny body.
Its wings fan open and like a fire-rescue helicopter,
it flies away home.
To hang beneath such skies as these,
Sheet blue glass, marbled with white,
Clouds threading wisps on a day to seize
This glory before the fall of night.
I stared aloft with blood infused
With springtime’s amphetamine jolts,
With dandelion seeds and daffodil juice
And the sparks from lightening bolts.
And in this cool, stately reverie
As greenfly crawled upon the rose,
The world it shrank microscopically
To elements of poetry and prose.
A poem of love, the soft whispering words
Dripped from the murmur of my lips
And drowned the sound of bees and birds,
Becalmed the sails of the sailing ships.
To listen as a vacuum ruled the earth,
To the rhyme wrought in this magic hour,
A poem of love, a colossus of worth
Bestrode the day with its’ power…
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.