Day 25 ~ I won’t send you flowers

I won’t send you flowers.

~

Love poems abound with flowers

denoting lovesick nights

bouquets of restless hours,

or scented petals of delight.

Roses, roses, roses

red, pink and white.

Don’t you have enough by now

Strewn beneath your feet?

As you walk you crush them.

~

I’m tired of your demands.

It’s not what loves about.

There are droughts and floods,

withered buds and broken bowers,

weeds running wild,

(weeds that later rot).

Why should I pick flowers

when I know you’ll watch them wilt?

~

I won’t refresh your vases.

Go and see the garden.

I grow delinquent dandelions

and neroli for neglect

(bitter orange for your lips).

© A.Chakir 2023

Sad Roses

look at the roses

there is the vase

a symbol of passion

expensive perfection

force-grown under glass

and this is your gesture

of undying love?

a weed from the ditches

plucked

as you thought of me

out on your walk

would  show me far more

weeds persist

weeds push through

when the growing gets tough

your love without loyalty

isn’t

enough

 

 

 

 

Beatific in Oxford

To use a trite phrase,
Everything’s coming up roses
This isn’t a brief, illusory phase
Everything’s flooded with light
It’s new life, everlasting and bright
The coffee is stronger
And certainly sweeter
Out here on an Oxford street.
The man on the corner is looking at angels,
I can tell by the smile on his face
And nothing seems out of place.
My own heart is beating, gently repeating,
Taking wing to the clear skies above.
Your message is beeping again on my phone
Reading your words, and answering you,
I smile at the angels too.
I observe the flight of a dove,
Stone wall to old tower,
Tower to tree top, swaying above.
The branches burst into flower.
This is the morning of love.
This is the magic hour.

brown pebble

i have a pebble
smooth and brown
with a sheen
but unpolished
it sits secure
in the palm of my hand

we went to the garden
just the two of us
i carried a spade
and the ashes
the day was fair
and no breeze blew
my father made
this sheltered space
down among the roses
and here i dug the heavy earth
no marker for this grave
i picked up a pebble
held it
a secret no-one shared
we said a few words
we stood in silence
my mother turned away

i have a pebble
smooth and brown
with a sheen
but unpolished
it sits secure
warmed in the palm of my hand

small
significant
so easily lost

Rain Storm

after thunder came the rain

good times will return again

grass enriching the landscape
doesn’t look quite the same

from my window
all the things that I saw
don’t look quite the same anymore

in the desert, roses bloomed
while you sat quietly in your room

revelations can come from anywhere
but they never come too soon

The Caterpillar Speaks (updated version)

The Hatter is a lunatic
He never knows which card to pick.
The March Hare is always running late.
He hasn’t even got a date.
The clock’s not as it seems.

The Hatter has bad dreams,
He’s always in distress
And Alice has a problem too,
She’s not sure what to do
When she doesn’t fit her dress.

They’re lost inside a fairy tale
And none of it is true.

There’s a thought inside the Hatter’s head
That Alice is his match
But he hears laughter all the time.
The cards are hard to catch.
He can’t make reason out of rhyme,
And every time he thinks of love
He’s haunted by a bat.

Twinkle twinkle little dove,
His stars may help with that,
They’re shining bright enough above
And all will be complete
When he sees roses
Scattered at his feet.

 

 

 

To Lizzie (when we were eight)

I remember you little girl,
I remember you so well,
(still with a smile in my eyes)
and our home in the hidden hedgerow
and your pink tray with painted roses
you’d dragged from a tangled ditch
and scrubbed clean as a whistle
to serve me tea, one day, long ago,
when i returned from my wandering hunt
in the unfenced, treasure filled hills.

I remember your bouncing braids
as you ran and skipped on ahead,
to the shade of the bluebell woods.
I remember your chapped lips,
dry, from long summers suns;
the lips that i kissed so chastely
and thought it a daring deed
that I waited for days to repeat,
knowing you wanted me
to practice more kisses in play.

my princess of summer meadows,
my princess of virginal snows,
my princess of warm rains and ice,
my princess of the beckoning
who thought she was only a girl

we knew how to savour life
we knew how to live for one day,
and never for yesterday.
we only wished our tomorrow
to be the same as today,
in the simple trust that it would.
now, i remember you, little girl,
i wish that it always was

Don’t Paint the Roses

 

she remembered she was falling
reaching for a cake  crumb
swallowing a draught
that completely turned her head

she was running round the roses
painting red and white
challenging the chess board
to manoeuvres in the dark

she had a distant memory
of a love that struck a spark
but the tables all kept turning
when he tried to take her hand

in the horrors and delusions
that stalked this troubled land
he loved her all the time
but he had lost his mind

lovers often lose their way
whether they are sane of mad
all is topsy-turvy
when the news is  always  bad

they race around in shadows
tying to find a light
their dreams become a nightmare
ruining their night

but up above the stars shine out
constellations point the path
if only they could both sit down
gazing up at last

the roses never needed paint
he knew that all along
check mate only brings an end
to more that can be done

lovers only need to sit
and think what love’s about
and forget the silly games
that pull them inside out

 

 

All the Roses

the red rose and the white
standing sentinel
on each side of the path

the red rose of passion
the white for purity
so it was told to me

with time the bud unfolds
they litter history
more stories must be told

how Alice met the mad ones
walking nervously alone
in there amongst the flowers
i pondered that for hours
the red queen and the white
would haunt my childhood nights

and then we went to York
and thought of Lancaster
and roses making war
i never saw such violence
shaking petals, thrusting thorns,
tattering the tender growing rose

and then the Tudors came
the doubled rose of white and red
its petals widely spread
holding all in thrall
with gold and iron rule
while it blossomed

a treasure, was The Rose
where actors took the stage
Shakespeare came of age
its name was at the heart
emblem of poets art
that blooms as nectar overflows

now, in the garden,
i plant my roses
i plant them for their scent
i plant them for all they mean to me
they guard my families ashes
i strip away the stories
watching as their gentle petals fall

full of passing glories
but every year repeating
shining out with soft simplicity

a sign of lasting love
given from above
that’s all a rose was ever meant to be

The Faerie Garden

Its windows blown by wind and rain,
down the lanes where no-one came,
an ancient ruined cottage stood
with tumbled walls, close by the wood.

The cottage garden growing wild
with warring flowers unreconciled
was all a tangle, intertwined,
with paths and borders undefined

Columbine closed up the doors,
Ivy crept across the floors.
The roses grew all over-blown
Claiming all the walls their own.

Delphiniums, for summer skies,
near the solemn peonies rise.
Hollyhock o’er-towers them all
and Jasmin scents the evenings fall.

In this riotous throng of flowers
the faeries come to spend their hours.
They crown themselves with daisy chains
as sunlight spreads its last remains.

As evening falls they make their way
with gentle steps at close of day
to the bed they much prefer
beneath the sleepy lavender.