Purple Words: Garden Of My Dreams

Garden Of My Dreams

Whenever my heart would wander

the garden of my dreams falls on the wood.

The Plants seem a distant veil,

The Phantom Willow boughs a cloak and hood.

Under Ben trees, the Woodland Tweezers

play their game of Go in their positioning;

The Tirillus Silvador keep away the llamas

with their peculiar whistling; behind which towers

The Protorbis: a smallish fungal-looking mesa;

The Lepelara Terristis: spoon-like and Camporana:

fan-like monofoliates spring up like grasses;

The Solea: their vegetable spears stand at the ready;

The Giraluna: Moonflowers with their pearled petals;

The Artesia: living arabesques and curlicues;

A solitary Anaclea Taludensis provides the perfect

illusion of a constant size no matter the distance;

A bed of Orifleurs wait for the touch of flame to set

their seeds adrift along the nonexistent breezes;

The Porquilla: cactus-like with retractable spines;

The Snake-Vines: aptly called Asp-entwined;

The Orchis: orchid-like, vampiric in nature and flight:

The Farwala: tuft-like, hunting with impaling flowers;

The Dark Lotus: with its anesthetic & digestive nectar;

and lastly The Poda: huge Poppy-like pods with toothy

leaves hypnotizing prey with its prodigious floral displays.

All fascinating and all fantastical Botanical Anomalies

grouped together as The Elemental Garden of Oddities:

Alpha Centauri rather than from Earth they were from.

If there were wee beasties here they hid well amidst

this vegetative paradise which seemed hallucinatory

as if generated from Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey

or some Ergot-infested loaf of bread.

---by Purple Mark, 07/28/2012

Purple Prompts:                                                                         

1. “Whenever my heart would wander in Göksu / the garden in my dreams falls on the wood. / At dusk the roses seem a distant veil / the phantom willow boughs a cloak and hood.” A.S. Byatt. The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye: Five Fairy Stories. (Random House 1994) Page 151.
2. Tirillus Silvador, Woodland Tweezers, Protorbis, Solea, Giraluna, Artesia, Anaclea Taludensis are all plants from Parallel Botany Leo Lionni Alfred A. Knopf 1977.
3. The Orchis are inspired by Jack Flanders: Dreams Of Rio by Thomas M. Lopez, ZBS Foundation 1987.
4. The Porquilla, Snake-Vine, Orifleurs, Farwala, Dark Lotus and Poda are all from my own fevered imagination.
5. Philip’s words: fascinating*, elemental*, box car, okra pickle, dour, Alpha Centauri*, Seminole, baby rattle, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey*, roller skates, Deep Purple, wee beasties*, coif, snitzel with noodles.

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.

Love Poems Are Horrible

She Looks Lovely Covered in Earth

Does she think of me, O' Swan?

The she who wears a myriad of faces.

O' Swan, she floats when she walks.

Does she get lost in that oblivion of innocence and youthful learnings?

Does she suspect that I have feelings for her?

Swan, she enters my dreams and flutters around like a humming bird.

She wears many masks in between her thoughts

Her song bird voice ping-pongs through the space between my ears.

I wish, O' Swan, that you could turn my body's clock back one decade

But if you did, would I still love her?

---William James, January 18, 2003

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.

Love Poems Are Horrible...

What Not to Write in a Love Poem

We're tightly wrapped

our gated breaths overlap

Warm sensations

breed complete relaxation

I am overwhelmed in happiness

A timeless tender kiss

I guard the one in my arms

She, the woman I love

loves me back

Ending never

memories last forever

---March 10, 2003

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.

Love Poems Are Horrible

I Didn't Know I Was Such A Romantic

I can see her

a seed germinates in rich soil

she is round with my child

---William James, February 2, 2007

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla

The Art of Word-Jacking.

'Freedom.'

'Justice.'

'Democracy.'

Three words,

lost to us.

Plundered by the few,

stripped naked and ravaged,

pummeled into submission.

Three words,

taken from us.

Usurped so casually,

stolen and cleaved,

left meaningless.

Three words,

strangled and violated.

No more.

Not today.

Today, we reclaim the ideals,

the billion voices,

all straining to be heard.

Today, we take back our truth,

our collective aspiration,

still yearning for the harvest.

Today, we sing the hymns of freedom,

as we gather at the gates of justice,

while mourning the paralysis of democracy.

'Freedom.'

'Justice.'

'Democracy.'

Three words,

that we shall wrest back.

Three words,

that have nurtured our dreams.

'Freedom.'

'Justice.'

'Democracy.'

Three words,

for which we all have bled.

Three words,

word-jacked and abused,

that are ours once more.

'Freedom.'

'Justice.'

'Democracy.'

Three words,

that shall remain tightly wrapped,

around our collective core.

Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.