DOGROSES BY KELLY’S FIELD .. .

. ..

I was not looking for succour
after June showers 2024
nor looking for way-out door

they like wash-line panties
cheer fellows discreetly
yellow printed daisies

I had not seen bird or deer
the sky cloud, laden with shadow
a solo linnet in the thicket

sounds by an emptied can of beer
the grass Hammerstein high
lazy circles tired of being hopeful

as though Armageddon had ended
finally my futility exhausted
where no buzzard’s cry

but there they hung lascivious
dancing girls at Tony’s
garlands of feminine fritillary

if I had wanted just to sleep
to surrender my absurdity
sleep does not often come

this challenge to my hypocrisy
we surrender willingly to gun
faintly flowers we ignore

these hours of my deception
the cruelty, lengthy pain
sharp signals dressed with rain

nighttime falls heavy
as lead upon the sidelines
meekest sunshine crosses

she wears no other clothes
but regimed my path
of fading, summer antiquity

she trailed her arms, limbs
adornments so frill
expertly as a songbirds call

I hung with her limply
at the border fences
sirens sound, guests lonely

her colours lit so starkly
softened white, pretty
e’en in the pinkish half light

yet even within dark night
her smile most apparent
her sunshine face laced

mid harrowed hedgerows
the long grasses rambled
nettled thoughts unscrambled

she, parabolic, metaphoric
dances out, single the dog rose
then many, pretty feathers

nature makes such surprises
flitting wrens, diving swifts
sounds of rain upon the sill

I sensed a change between rivers
declension and direction
my mood is garden sparrow

until the citrus sunshine falls
on every garden table
every tree, every lost seagull

imagery to the senses
this dog rose lies where
and with whom she chooses

nestling in the bustle of all lost causes
where guns and bodies fail
lifts bruised her bloodied faces

lay the dog rose on her linen
lay her pleasant shrift upon me
when I am crushed and gone

.. .

©EDENBRAYTODAY10.06.2024