Battle Flower Poem by Tara Teeling

The roses are dying,
red deepening into black,
with a scorched paper crust
curling the skin's edges,
in a butter coloured vase.

I pull at the petals,
ripping the deadened
from the living,
like cutting gangrened limbs
off a wounded soldier.

These live for the idyllic and dreamy,
working to convert cynics with
high-ranking, political colour.
The subtle enlightenment of this thorny plant,
brings about the idea of power and passion
and in promising these things, it begins
its own creed without support of miracles.

We believe in them.
They silently trumpet their call like
the war whoop of a centuries old battleground,
blending perfume, dominion and spirit.
One bloom can possess the worth of
those who behold it,
while voicelessly boasting of
a peace and love which can only be found
in reverence to its prestige.

Crusaders and pacificators,
messengers for guilty men or the lovesick,
they are given in the hope for love,
or to silence the wails of an unending squall.
They die slow, ugly deaths in
the name of that which they battle for.

The roses,
surrogate to sister poppies,
will fall with honour,
in a butter coloured vase.