(photo by Jan Carroll)
Delphinium ~ a gay garden, revisited
May 2000
‘Till the shadows
on his past
In a separate garden.
Except that we were
laughing
They couldn’t have cared less
Not to check mindless
Blooms.
Throwing our heads back for
The last Brunch
The sun mocking itself
meanwhile
frond noir
Tricking the eye into
Thinking that it is
~reseeing a day of youth
the shade in shadows
in shadows
we don’t really remember
30 years ago before the last fall
When everyone was
subsumed
million-rooted blood hydra
just another monster
to be melted
on this day buried
behind black purple
Siberian irises
splashed with cheap mimosas
aubergine morning glories
all flora staying out for a long
morning luxuriant
Lurching
fox gloves
slap each other with lilies
forgetting a century
(cream laced with black Pagliaci tears)
Spilt over lips
With winds swirls
making us blink vs,
red or violet afterburns
a lace pink fade
blade swat and sway
before noon
Trying to dance against
the lazy chorus of chive hammers
In blur organza
brushing by
Spiked feathers
Tripping over bowl of clover
Whisper over
villainous amaryllis
loitering
With intent
Snapdragons in
Venereal poses
shaded
Under arc of skid row
rails repopulated with lilac clematis
(ear-ringed, dreadlocked)
As the
Ladies of the Nellie Mosers,
Descend.
On neon Medusa
sundial
Stare
granite dragon
ignored
unbloomed with doubt
certain of never
galaxy seeding
chrysanthemum
if it survives
Root map of the ants
cotillion next door to
The red speck-flies
Amok on mauve silk belles
willow spiraled in
gnarled beauty
because of the early heat
and forget-me-nots
lost on other endless afternoons
the amber showdown
vaporized our outfits
reassemble from last
night,
forced bloomed
to thought
and wry composition
the limpness
with immediate history
we’ve never looked worse
The lovers gone
Friends silenced
from ultimately
out of the
heroic era
of Unheralded souls
What we
were once
& need to be again
Will always be the
Ghosts of the gardens at Versailles.
Those forgotten blooms
still perennially lost
no we did not
remember promises not to
fall in love
Have sex
Not to cheat on our lovers
Or press leaves between
The pages of the unsigned pact that
We are finally
loving witness for each other
and that is a sanctified root
the perpetual motion
So the light changed
there is laughter
The same larkspur
flying out of Troy
To drown out
the next rain
soaring in this
dank metropolis
so supple
so fetid sometimes
it wanders
in the field of
Delphinium
So instead do not
turn our back
On the blinded warrior
going back in
to say goodbye
unforeshadowed
Queen of the Garden