Thread: 2/25/08 | Plants

Terribly sorry for the delay.

This challenge's theme is "Plants." Literally or metaphorically, that is for you to decide. I would ask that all entries be in by March 15th (thread will be closed on the 16th) so that we can begin judging.

Also, anyone interested in judging can PM Hawke. It's an integral part of participating, so volunteer.

You may begin.

It consists of Ellie, David, and you.


Ellie is our bromeliad,
a dime a dozen
growing everywhere,
but a landscaping must.
She photosynthesizes
at two peak colors
and therefore refrains
from coffee refills.
She grows from trees.
She carpets forests
with the phrase:
Next sample question.
Sample questions are
fruits plucked from orchards
only her monocot
fingers can touch.


David is a lichen,
staying where ever convenient
and college ain't so much
a foundation but a place
from the wind.
He coaxes the lecture notes
from our hands with his
drinking-straight-from-the-
coffee-pitcher stupidity.
He lives in a tent on a
buddy's roof most days
because he can't pay rent.
Ellie wants to cultivate him
and the waitress watches
him, lovingly.
Too bad he's asexual,
which keeps luring her over
with a "Need anything else?"


You are brown algae.
A holdfast roots you
to morality and tiny
sacks of nitrogen float
you up towards heaven.
It's just like you to eat
cantaloupe, poached eggs,
and have a reproductive cycle
invisible to the naked eye.
Just like you to bend with
the surf, to nod during
lectures, to agree with
the pullers of the tide.
I can't help but fear you’ll be
found some thick-faced
morning, limp and formless,
washed up on the beach.


I can't help but wonder at how
delicately you eat those eggs as
David botches another question.


Ellie touches David's hand
with an: it's okay.
It's okay.
You'll get the next one.

Spirogyra

For a hundred million years or so I reigned supreme
Top of the evolutionary tree,
Multiplying, increasing me
My twisted spiral of green
Echoing the hidden helix
Content and un-complex
Sucking in sunlight
Life was all right

There I would have remained, but for a few Protozoa
Older than thought, one individual,
Half my reproduction was a-sexual
My children change and flower,
Each generation comes and passes
Oaks, redwoods, plains of grasses,
Behind them I remain
Always the same

Protozoa stayed the same and changed along with me
A hundred million years more,
My body is eaten by dinosaurs
A waiting game we shall see
Mammals are the latest thing,
Or a final protozoan fling?
I take the long view
Despise the new

One day dominant supremacy shall come around again
The works of man’s hand
Wipe the life from the land
Poison oceans full of pain
And in some shallow silver sea
The last few cells of me
Will split
Restart it

The blue green algae
Spread across a stone
With assured superiority
Smiled lazily to itself

Orchard Tree.

The arching rains of May
hug slanting horizon
above metropolis
of humming birds and beetles,
sputtering, churning fumes
against backdrop of smoking chimneys -
refuge for capitalist corporations,
resisting volatile markets, veneering truth
with deciduous obligations.

Lies lie across the ground,
absorbed by central orchard tree
climbing against fluorescent neon backgrounds,
branching out to touch, caress, bear fruit
for swelling masses - feeding roots
of society’s creed.

Greed bleeds from corrupted mouths,
takes food from starving hands
and sucks, savouring last breaths
of the working classes.

Seed

disconsolate days
winter awaits
solstice rays,
seed’s hold
breaks

granite ground
twine vine,
moisture bound,
burrows down
through crevices
devoured and
spring

found. draws
dew’s remains,
grips soil,
slips rock,
sustains...

life

shakes
dormant death!
escapes
earthbound night

lifts twisted,
rips free!
gives birth
into virgin light

stretches in silent
infant scream
stem and leaf
extend and breathe
and grow
to go
to seed

Untitled.


Clasping hands the bramble titters,
holding quiet captives – leaf litter;
leprous arms, capricious teeth,
claw the air, and trapped beneath
a brown-breast sparrow
has his cage amongst fallow;
nipping at white cotton wisps,
shiny pieces, sunny days.

Xylem networks criss-cross crosses,
making walls where water losses
wash the greenfly soilwards.
Fondling this matrix tightly,
the strands and skirts of Lady Ivy.
Turgid cells of morning green
lie in wait where light has been,
and lazy phloem hands and wings
kiss, caress the aged skin
so that his branches quake within.

A varnished snail slows in passing,
drawing border for brown-breast, asking
“Are you peckish, dear?”
Giggling on her way.

Up above the pair are mating.
Farther out, a field of dib-blades taking
humble slithers of the sky, slaking
their thirst and shaking excess
down fine green spines.
“Just a drip
Just a drop” the sparrow wines,
hopping on the spot.

Turning sun-breath into food
the twisted captors breed and brood.
Stolen when he dared intrude,
Brown-breast, doing business quietly,
has no natural propriety.

Poppy Fields






Boys kick up dust for lost fathers
with scuffed shoes and laces loose;
their mother’s tear on a cheek,
flush with frowns, anger
and a need to sign on the dots.

Barrels seized in winter’s wind
as pocket minefields bait the dead,
lead them to crumbled stone,
broken limbs and a powder
that drowns in the snow.

Polythene foreign invasion
spreads toxicity and notes
to line sorrow pockets;
they keep the medic busy
with spades and scales.

Green beneath the crimson;
where the fields that plough
now foster kindred kin;
a weep belongs with soil
to push the roots of red.

Tears that fall hard to plinth
remember why they smile,
as they weigh the cost
in bags of white death,
or a lapel, to remember.











.

Tragedy of Creation

Crunching leaves is all he hears
As the forest floor surrounds him
Like a mother to her child it blanketed
Willows and branches seemed unreal
The scorching waves the father gives
And the humid loam holding him steady
He remains unshaken and poised still
These he least bothered and least feared

As his roots impaled deeper into the clay
So did his arms reaching farther than daybreak
For this tree was different it seemed more clever
And witty, and skillful, and carved better
The blanket in which he was covered became more loose
He wandered off and strayed far
As far as the eye can see and more
Oh what pleasure! he felt for himself
Yet in his mothers' eyes are flustered and confused

As leaves change color and as leaves fell
The son returns with a smirk in his face
Mother, look what I've done,it's a masterpiece
Fumes and smogs the demon created
His roots stitched to the cold pavement
But inside the blanket torn about the ages
A decaying carcass awaits,
His mother rotting and lifeless

What have I done! squealed the naive tree
City progressed as the forest was left dying
There is nothing you can do now answered his father
For without your mother you are helpless
Doomed forever, a slave to your own creation
And in the end you will realize
It's not your mother you have murdered but yourself
A certain tragedy you delivered to your own kin

And after all is said and done
Crunching leaves is all that will be heard
From the forest floors' beaten surrounding
There will no longer be a mother or a child
There will only be silence

Sorry for my lateness.

"Crutch"

Twisting vines a-creeping,
into our life they're reaching;
unwanted parasitic plants
we love to host.

Can't get enough,
can't live without;
life's too rough,
without a doubt -

let the chokeweed sprout.

Toxic roots keep soil stable,
and we are entirely unable
to tear away the frame
and remain standing

to bear the pain.

The thirsty stalk does prick
but remains our cane;
a walking stick,
a chain.

We give them rain and do not reign
For the vines a-creeping have taken over.

aqua wheat

algae
earth salt and sea
red tides whales ocean gales
liquid landscapes coral reefs and
seaweed