Englishness Poem by Mark R Slaughter

The rose perceives:

Tho’ giv’n to cries inside its petals,
We see the dissolution of a searching heart

A thornless rose will struggle –
Embarrassed,
Her paucity of pricks,
A sensual thing –
What slender stems –
Allows her sexuality
To slide

The English rose
Is dying though,
In evanescent pride –
Her nationalistic pose
Wilting –
Once a red-blue-white stanchion

Manure is the garden
And the rose begat –
Carbonaceous oddity –
As we are too
We’re all as one in life

THE END

So has it had its day, the rose?
Well,
Suppose I cock my neck,
Tell ‘em all that
I prefer the darker introversion of:
The Dahlia –
Her kiss lands upon the very lips of Death!

I love the death in dahlias,
The hidden purple-black –

A deeper sexuality
With meaning.


Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2013