Delphinium

A Gay Garden, May 2000

‘Till the shadows
on his past
In a separate garden

No pansies, Narcissus, no dandies

Recessed in the room
so that you come to them
Little daggers drooping on the hearts of men

Except that we were
laughing
They couldn’t have cared less
Not to check the out of our minds
Blooms.
Throwing our heads back for
The last Brunch
The sun mocking itself
Tricking the eye into
Thinking that it is seeing a day of youth.

Then swaying
we don’t really remember graves
25 years ago before the lost dates
When everyone was ill
with the million-rooted blood hydra

So on this day,
we celebrated
Jerry’s black purple
Siberian irises
Operatic over
the campy furniture
And cheap mimosas

The aubergine
The puce gray filigree glories

Lurching by the
towering fox gloves

(in cream with black Pagliaci tears)
Spilt over its lips
That flash an afterimage

With the pulsing winds
making us blink
And slap each other with lilies.

Twin dahlia,
red and violet
Swat and sway their hips
Trying to dance against

the lazy chorus of chive hammers
In blur organza
brushing by
Spiked gay feathers
Tripping over bowl of clover

Whisper over
villainous amaryllis
loitering
With intent

Snapdragons lean in
Venereal shades
Under Gary’s
Arc of skidrow lattice

Populated with pale pink clematis
(ear-ringed and dreadlocked)

As
Ladies of the Nellie Mosers,
Descend.

On the Neon Medusa
Staring down
The granite dragon
Yawning, ignored

Root map of the ant….s
cotillion next door to
The red speck-flies
Amok on cream silk-hooded belles

Pussy willow bended
gnarled to beauty
Shown erect
because of the early heat
pricked
like other endless afternoons

Everybody vaporized
in outfits
That were forced bloomed
But now limp
with immediate history

The lovers gone, the
Friends changed,
perfumes from
A vanished era still around
Fading in and out with
Unheralded souls clutching
What were once and what

Will always be the
Ghosts of the gardens at Versailles.
Those forgotten roses
May still be here.

Not remembering promises not to
Have sex
Not to cheat on our lovers
Or press leaves between
The pages of the unsigned pact that

We are witnesses for each other
So the light changed
And there is still laughter
The same larkspur
dug out of Troy

To and about to drown
In the next rain
Dancing in this
Petrified metropolis
So fetid
this dank soil
Is seeded the next
Delphinium
So instead turn our back
On the blinding
Nespoli
Unforeshadow

Queen of the Garden