The Language of Flowers

The Language of Flowers

...It began life as a flower-photograph, before being passed through many Photoshop generations. I wanted to do my best to capture the essence of something surging, something alive, rather than prosaic particulars…

A SONG FOR SUMMER

Spare me the yellow loneliness
Of scorched afternoons, that gape like private deserts.
Spare me my skull, swathed in a sulphur dazzle
Of vindication (but not my vindication):
Where chokes a flightless, an imprisoned bird –
And on the inside: it’s all dark.

June 2004

OUR CANCER WOULD LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING

How fast can living things revert to mud?
The beggar on a street is halfway there.
And, thanks to you, our mouths – yours and mine both –
Are gagging with the old sepulchral muck.
Because my beauty was not like yours
You said I was corrupt.
Like you, though, I wanted only to survive.
I did not intend – I did not plan –
My gain should be your loss. (They say one never does.)

Not that I ask for your blessing
Any more than you’ll seek mine:
With gallows humour, you used to joke,
I was a creature of limited thought
And immense powers of concentration.
Because (undisciplined, unaided) I didn’t know how
To die, you called me a social climber,
Troubled, in case I might be your one true son.
Let’s not play Pooh Sticks with
The Enlightenment game.
I had form. I had purpose: I had ambition.
I know my rights. I am a peacock,
A wet dream, the American dream.
What’s your modern fashion, to give the underdog
An innate moral innocence?
What’s with this sudden sanctity of yours,
Meaning that your way – and only yours –
Should be the one to live forever?

September 2006

The Language of Flowers belongs to the following groups:

All Things Poetic, Artistic, Philosophical and Psychedelic Art & Design *TAG YOUR IMAGE!* Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints and Framed Prints