Flower Poetry
When the flowers first escaped the row,
having scattered their generatives in time with a good wind,
I used poison to contain them.
All gardeners know you can only own beautiful things
if you keep them in a square.
These were hearty poison-eating flowers, I discovered.
Soon, they made the grounds, even rooting in the concrete walk.
Hurrah for wildness, hurray for its life, I thought,
leaving them be.
I remember too clearly the morning I witnessed
the first flower to get inside the house.
It was growing from the kitchen floor.
I contained this pretty creature by setting a large soup-pot over it.
By next afternoon, the flower had called a compatriot,
and the pot had been overturned.
There was little time before their assault occurred.
Past the ramparts of my porch and windows,
the flowers crept in, each making a delicious scent,
sweetness in the walls, emanating from the fixtures,
flowers curling into the breadbox, out of the soot-flecked oven—
Last night, I heard them trying the bedroom door.
I sit now on his leather, well-papered workbench,
as the doctor tugs the first stalk-backed root from my head.
For Peppery Guards of Well-Perched Eyes
Things have swiveled, force of February,
who from day-slip and cuckoo’s dawn has all my hail.
The tackle of youth is a stark desire,
kept as air in wood and dale, as grass on a hill,
and for relief? I have no reason why—
no, for welcome, and sprawling play,
for peppery guards of well-perched eyes
on the tank town brink I have kept.
I note our dim and uncut gems belong to a slow pulse
of whim and warmth. If I have forgotten something,
it is dispensable, or else remind me;
things have swiveled, force of February;
more than many forces, there is now every reason to love.
— by Ray Succre
Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son. He has had poems published in Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novels Tatterdemalion (2008) and Amphisbaena (2009), both through Cauliay, are widely available in print. Other Cruel Things (2009), an online collection of poetry, is available through Differentia Press.
For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit Ray online: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com
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Copyright © 2010, by Ray Succre. All Rights Reserved.
