Blowball and cankerwort,
words born from a common tongue.
English is most practical
when it is rustic and colloquial.
Lions tooth, priests crown,
moles salad and pee-a-bed.
‘Swine snout’ snorts loud upon the page.
The yarrow-yellow flowers last for hours
then overnight turn to fairy bones.
I recall us both sat upon the grass
blowing unfettered puffs into the wind,
our hair littered with stemmed parasols
the pirouetting flotsam of the airborne.
The French have alternate names,
herbal idioms difficult to spell,
but we savor together taraxacum
for it is a diuretic and wets the tongue,
as do the damply dunked sounds
of sneeze-helicopter's and
the muddy splatter of piggy snozzles.
Lions teeth are its leaf,
mix well with burdock
for a low tea under a shady tree.
Beware of false dandelions
such as cats ears and coltsfoot.
The Chinese, Pu Gong Ying
is the real thing.
After we had covered each other
with dandelion kisses
we made hay the old fashioned way.
Feel free to spell dandelion
the way you would write
a long sunny day.
DANDELIONS
Large genus of flowering plants at random
Tiny blossoms each fine, known as floret
make composite flower-head, no secret.
Scientific name goes as Taraxacum.
From root to flower, each part edible
Vitamins, minerals enriched the plant,
Also, soluble fiber and antioxidant.
Use medicinal values being sensible.
Bright yellow blooms show happiness and glee
Sharp spiky leaves of dandelion
resemble a bit as teeth of a lion.
To leave garden, stubborn weeds never agree.
04/16/19
I've been allergic to beauty
For 35 years
In a series of diphenhydramine dreams.
Spring stings
And all of these tears
Are wearily ripening in-between screams.
The flowers look so happy,
I can barely see them.
Oh, yellowish green
Cognitive haze.
Cloaking my brain
For a mighty good reason,
These trees are sappily
In love with my pain.
On solid screen doors
The taraxacum tours
My squalid green corps
Is sincerely yours,
I'm so dissociative
That I can be you,
And this hell is
As cool as life,
It's hard to live
But whenever I do
I'm just as well as
Wherever I might.
For crying out loud
For crying at all,
I'll eat the pollen
Until the fall.
Officinale taraxacum,
the plain and simple dandelion,
If I said that most adore her,
brother, I'd be lyin'!
In garden plots and flower beds,
twixt paving stones, they flourish,
a boon to some, a pest to some
who wish that they would perish!
In her defense I must applaud
with great exhilaration,
the determined way she grows,
her quick proliferation!
If you favour wine or jam
this yellow bloom's for you,
its leafy greens are great for salads,
and it helps your liver, too!
The dandelion is here to stay,
and stay, and stay, indeed;
some don't mind its yellow crop,
to others, it's A WEED!
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