my dead garden - national poetry month #2/30

once sumptuous robust velvet roses

petals I plucked and pinched between my fingers

for their lovely crimson stain, it's sweet essence

pressed against my lips

anointed with their lifeblood

for the sake of our delicious kiss

they are dry, browned, heads bowed

their oils rancid, congealed

the forsythia is no more than a shock of despair

utterly horrified it stands petrified and sparse

like small sucked in brains soaked in ether

the marigolds have given up altogether

the tulips tremble at the sound of your voice

they ask that i not tell what became of them

none will imbibe another drop

rotten from the gelatinous root

collapsed like junkie veins

the weeping willow weeps still

small paper leaves bearing our poems

blow across the crabgrass

into the swampy birdbath

stagnant filthy used

through a blurred curtain of tears

i watched each flower choke, darken and wilt

as your thoughtless gaping maw

inundated my carefully tended garden

with it's noxious suffocating gases

jani rosado copyright © 2010