XI: Bruised Petals
Samara
une des fleurs du Jardin
peut-être pas la plus jolie
mais la plus gentille
et jolie, jolie, jolie comme une rose
in autumn
tired, overblown
but soft, and sweet
so soft so tired-sweet
I felt for her
thought I would pluck her
take her home with me,
love her ...
Samara
aime les hommes riches
peut-être pas élégants
mais riches, et libres
et liberaux:
je t'aime (elle dit), je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime
(elle n'a que ces trois mots de français)
fuck me!
(et deux en anglais) - Je t'adore
I murmur, neither variety
nor verity
being the spice -
Love me -
Mmmmmmmmmm ...
Real poverty is a sea -
it drinks and drinks
infinity
unaffected by the finite.
Infinitely poor
Samara
too
till I had no more
and she
as poor
as viced by poverty
as she had been before -
she laughed
love her ...
They took and sold
or kept
my everything
Le Jardin,
gave me a torn old djellaba
(Samara begged) let
me stay around
as long as I swept
and washed
and polished the leaves
slept in the cold
and didn't try
to love her.
*
Around the dustbins
roses fade,
on bones and bottles
petals fall
Roses bloom and
fade and die:
remember me
for you and I
live longer than
the roses, we
love on and on
when hope is gone
On bones and bottles
petals fall,
on love, and life,
in spite of all
*
After years of the wandering life,
In Paradise now I wait,
Knowing love come and gone,
Too late.
Years among thistles growing,
Thistles in bloom,
Beauty tearing and pushing,
Make room!
This is the Garden of Love
This is Paradise, Hell
The garden where all loves end.
Look well.
Hell to an angel above
But I, born without wings, chose
To find in the Garden of Love
A rose.
*
A rose
Casually chosen
Casually fingered
Inhaled
Soft petals open
As casually thrown away
Grown
In the garden of God
In the Garden of Love
Sold
All her life
Is but the dance of a day
You
With me one night
Lips soft and laughing
Open
Casually chose me
As casually threw me away
*
We may no longer gather rosebuds:
Listen - midst the ash and bone
Limp red roses whisper tales
Of rosebuds dead and gone.
The flies drone on then stop. The silence
Fills with heat and sun and smells.
A fly moves. In the silence
I think I hear St Osyth's bells
Ring out across the empty marsh
Green and grey, the cold grey sea
Washing the foaming sand, a gull
Call, call, call to me.
*
Let oh let me feel COLD
Feel once more winter howling
Howling off the North Sea lashing ...
Passion is cool flesh, a hungry heart,
Idolatry warm oil on ebony;
Passion of the night and without art,
Idolatry of the day and publicly.
*
But look
a dead rose
red
bruised petals
blackening
pale sepals
down in open invitation
still
a bud
*
Nothing bothers me any more
The rats don't they bite
But not me and the flies
And the ants and the tortoises
All just waiting to clear up
Go home not the tortoises
If it weren't for the tortoises
And the memories ...
