In potted hills Finnish
Cauldrons run quips losing custard!
Vanquished serpents necking
Lounging cretons lavish
Tasking tisks
Mirroled bounce
Hinde bounding exiles
Worrisome kneels condensing bonnet?
Will and either knawlings
Coffered
Loave of Samson
Reason less below her faults
French horror?
Recalcitrant!
Be in no hurry, grow as you may, bending and turning whichever way.
Water I will, and water I must, water, until you bout, had enough.
Placed in the window facing the sun, to put on a show you're having fun.
As the day settles groomed for the night, grow as you may beneath the moon's light.
Written: December 10, 2023
____________________________________
Soft cashmere amethyst blossoms twinkle.
lilac lace of their heavenly voice
awaken singing the spotlight
life within a swamp mallow
ideal tint spring scent
vases full hiding
vision disguise
blue on the
outside
you
sky
purple
hues ascend
smoke on water
nature's and fragrance
moving from sniffing soap
lilacs on the backyard bench
scent of fresh rose in a glass vase
with a scent reminiscent of spring
from lilacs and rainfall, the sun appears.
Humbling foliage, sprinkled in a bed
A quiltlike pattern, reflecting heaven’s eiderdown,
In notes, like a musician playing out the ballad
Restoring hope in pieces - in precious leaves,
Stems resolving to color the heart in reprieve
Heterogeneous knowledge in the awing power of leaves and stems,
Plants who live to silence every darkness – hushing
Even the pain and fear, awakening inspirations so rich and dear
When we first saw Columbus;
his sea-bowed legs were struggling ashore;
us natives looked upon that unhealthy guy,
that marinated mariner who brought
news of garlic and olive oil to the unsuspecting,
both of which we natives had no use for.
Then it was that we envisioned as if in a dream
that natives should never, could never
forgive him for the insidious spread of Italian broccoli.
Thus we made war upon the brownish white men,
endeavoring earnestly to place an embargo
on any more useless imports.
No use!
Salesmen traveled all over our hunting grounds
offering yet more pizza ingredients.
The Spanish (long before Columbus Day),
had left pigs and horses for us Indians
for which we were most grateful,
and so we forgave
the genocidal aspirations of the conquistadors,
but broccoli was the absolute last straw,
and so we reigned terror
upon many a city statue of his likeness
and his pervasive, belligerent
garlic-breath.
She marks another birthday
by planting a flowering annual in a pot,
a forget-me-not for her forgetful mind.
Nowadays she primes herself
using visuals to clarify memories.
If at dawn, a pale moon lingers long enough
to marry a rising sun, she will dance alone,
a slow crazy dance, up in her high tower,
from there she can look across the rooftops
imagining routes and paths taken
the dwellings and bygone times, the loves,
that bloomed and wilted in that city
where she lived out her story.
Wide boulevards and dank back alleys
are stitched into a lacework of recollections;
some structures no longer there
return as landscapes printed on tissue paper.
She sees herself as a girl, a younger woman,
never as she is now.
If a bloom wilts before the years end,
she will sit by her upper window
looking for the morning sun to ignite
the pale moon of her eyes.
Then only does she dance -
her slow potted flower dance.
I can’t get the moors
out of my skin -
me the wild bog asphodel
now planted
in a pot in tame Ohio.
The moors grind you
into peat and gritstone,
they keep walking you around
while the open spaces sweep you dry,
even in the downpouring sky,
even under the bitter grasp
of banshee winds.
Who would lament
the bone hammering miles
trudged between hags and toughs,
the flat featureless,
slog over those high acres
of heather and mist?
Yet I find myself to be this longing,
to be this itch to find my own wilderness
here in suburbia.
You may find me now
strolling along the grassy edges
of Mall parking lots,
spot my shadow climbing a sunny day;
my head bent into an imaginary horizon,
eyes following paths that only
shaggy sheep can trace.
Potted Sinks
Round around round around on and on and on
Makes me dizzy this crazy ing thing
That spans decades almost centuries
One time France is the bad guy
Another Germany is the enemy
Then Russia is the opponent
Not to forget Japan pissing many off
And England they were the top one
Now it’s Red China who is the bad turtle
In future decades and centuries
New enemies and bad guys will be there
Top of the list wanting to missile you
As you aim your gun at them
Why is it this way the system?
Imagine if it developed differently
Our world would be at peace not war
And the defence complex would be war skint
Making plant pots and kitchen sinks instead
MAJOR INSOMNIA
CORPORAL SLEEP
Nick Armbrister and other writers
PERFECT POTTED Goat - A Haiku
baking wintertime
why a little, kind goat feeds
at the perfect pot
3/23/19
Potted Meat Sal,
Glued a Duckpond to Old Val,and in the winter, she collected Pearly Queens,
But instead of fish and carrots, she had parrots in her slippers,
And two miles of the M40 in her jeans.
I potted up a plant, with love, for you;
Although I fear it could turn out a weed:
I’ll have to stick a flower on with glue...
It wasn’t something that I really do,
But when I found a bird’s discarded seed,
I potted up a plant, with love, for you.
I could present you with a species new!
Perhaps I’ve got a tree or bush or reed...
I’ll have to stick a flower on with glue.
I cried the day you said our love was through;
It’s sad you say I am not what you need.
I potted up a plant, with love, for you.
I left and didn’t know what else to do...
They say that flowers help with love; indeed,
I’ll have to stick a flower on with glue.
It’s growing huge with spiky leaves of blue;
I gave it whisky, lots of chicken feed;
I potted up a plant, with love, for you;
I’ll have to stick a flower on with glue.
written 12th June for 'Villanelle me a flower' contest
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