See the winners here.
Above is a recent photograph of Chateau Boswell, a winery, vineyard, and tasting room located in California. It has suffered terribly because of the recent “Glass Fire” in Napa Valley.
Write a poem based on the above photo and post it in the comments section below. You will then be considered for the $100 prize.
WHEN: Now until Sunday November 8, 2020 midnight EST. Winners Announced November 15, 2020.
ENTRY FEE: None
WHO: Anyone in the world, any age or background, may participate. From within the Society, anyone, including Advisory Board Members, not involved in judging the contest may participate. (If you are outside the United States, you will have to have a PayPal account or a bank that accepts U.S. checks to receive the prize money if you win.)
WHAT: Each entrant may submit up to two poems of any length. Entries are expected to be classical in style, meaning that they must have a regular meter. Rhyming and other traditional techniques are of course good as well.
WHERE: Post your poem in the comments section below.
PRIZE: $100.
JUDGE: Evan Mantyk
“Only in Name”
A French castle
Or Chateau
Being a male lover
Or a beau
Courting women wearing bows
Namely
Names are simply identifiers
Even Juliet knew this
Because a rose by any other name
Would still smell as sweet
Chateau Boswell in its Shadow
It stands destroyed, indeed charred and burnt down,
A home, shadow of the former past days,
Struck down, stripped off its essence after fiery days,
The wine vineyard and the winery all gone,
Plethora of them with sweet exotic flavours,
So much to give lasting feel one savours,
Wild fire didn’t leave any of its kind just alone,
Losses are the aftermath clearly ever seen.
An Unexpected Call
Nothing much left of its splendid splendour,
The mastery and skillful ardour,
The very reason for its existence,
Made worthless by a fire so intense,
The vineyard and winery in ruins,
Can call to mind its labourers’ melodious tunes,
As they move across the field in column and row,
The wine stored in crafted bottles for a show,
Chateau Boswell a shadow of its old being,
Let’s pool resources to bring it back,
To the way it has indeed been,
Even adding more with nothing in lack,
As we earnestly hope and pray,
That further occurrence is kept at bay.
I was looking for a home
When I stumbled upon you
Soon, I knew I won’t be able to afford
But it’s an open house
Thank Heavens
I can stroll anytime I want
And so that’s what I do
Maybe, if I make an offer
You will let me in but I can’t maintain it
Plus I’ll mess it up
And it’s too beautiful to get messed up
So, I would be walking bare feet
Around the torture and the treat
Touching the walls and everything
Leaving just when I am about to ruin
The vibe with my sin
Let me know when you find someone suitable
To hold you intact and incredible
At least, a chaser deserve to know
When the prize has been taken
How Quickly
As dew-clad spring renews the thirsty land
The live oaks stand serene on green-grass hills—
A rolling landscape shaped by God’s own hand
Where golden poppies dance with daffodils.
The summer leads to fall, as contoured rows
Of vineyards bear the fruit of nascent wines.
As dry hills die, each grape and cluster grows
And ripens on the gnarled vintage vines.
Above the aging casks of Chardonnay
And Pinot Noir the Chateau Boswell burns—
Its legacy consumed and swept away;
Its vine-clad walls now crematory urns.
“How quickly,” Jesus said, “as in a flash,
“Are lilies of the field reduced to ash.”
A Winery, a fire, and an old rose
Upon a time came grapes
They were green and red
They grew happy and
Turned to wine.
On an unexpected day
A wind so strong with
Red and hot fire
Burned the winery
The old barrels
The thing that stood
Was the entrance to the winery
It had a rose bush
And the rose colored
Bricks to this day stand together
Brick by brick
Waiting to see the return of the winery
The folks who owned and loved her will bloom with hope
As the summer returns
And the earth brand new
Will give birth to new grapes
And the winery will again
Be a place of birth, joy, and great wine.
By Norma Okun
October 8, 2020
Though Charred and Wilted as a Rose
The Silverado Trail on fire;
The Chateau Boswell in its grasp,
Stretched out as on a funeral pyre
As flames inhale its final gasp.
Though charred and wilted as a rose—
Its beauty scarred and etched with pain—
Within the stem, a new bud grows
That, phoenix-like, will rise again.
Rosebud
What thunder grace safely sweetly wrapped is this
I see in the flash essay shock proem of your eyes,
Prized Orb, a bushel from your kiss,
While I drink in your liquid skies?
You spinning rain sun dance subtlest alchemist,
The telepathic crystallographic mitzvah flights
Lifted in the ninth biosphere mist,
And your beads colour blinding lights
Binding me to your astral body beats,
Spark-tossed, unruffled multiple deepening
ballet quantum leaped rhythms
Into the space of you far beyond mathematical feats.
I taste your voice in my midnight dreams
And the liquor fragrance of you is dearer.
You colour me with your poetical eyes of thunder.
A Rose Lament
I bowed my head, when sad I felt,
The burn and singe, which had been dealt,
In tandem with redemptive love:
Far worse was suffered, far above.
The Burnt Chateau of California
(A Mythological Interpretation of the Glass Fire)
Apollo rides the chariot of the Sun,
Full gay and melodious is his song,
September halts his wain and stops its run,
The dying summer dupes Apollo’s throng.
The Muses follow him and love his lyre,
But they are jaded by Sun’s gloomy rays,
While Bacchus, god of wine, fumes with desire,
In Chateau Boswell spends his tipsy days.
His turquoise eyes and corrugated hair
Attract the frenzied ladies to a sport,
A game of youthful passion in his lair,
Which makes Apollo envious of some sort.
The Muses have forsaken long his trail,
While his half-brother danced with ladies’ train
In the plush grapevine of the Napa vale,
So well nourished by Californian rain.
Apollo brandished thus his bow one day,
And aimed a burning arrow at the green,
From Helicon he launched his lethal flay
That kindled thunderous fire unseen.
The serpentine flames poached the Rose’s life,
She dropped her charred red petals in death-throe,
While the vineyard that the other day was rife
With purple grapes, is struck by a god’s bow.
The elixir is dead and now forlorn
Within Boswell, smouldering, effete,
What if a new hope springs from death, reborn,
From nature’s cradle yielded to defeat.
On the Glass Fire and the Chateau Boswell Winery
If with a firm assurance I could state
Those now scorched roses will come back
A brighter red and those stones now charred black
Will look as clean before a mordant fate
Conspired with wind and fire to conflagrate
Your vines in blazing storms of hiss and crack,
The claim would any worthy meaning lack,
No sparrow spare, nor set the crooked straight.
Although they sometimes cast a magic charm,
No words can conjure pleasure from past days
Or undo heedless nature’s wayward harm.
No rhyme or well-turned providential phrase
That might by an auspicious chance be mine
Can with pale lilac soothe a burned-down vine.
The Rose of Mourning
Walls of stone are much more prone to fire than fragrant roses,
Though one is soft and vulnerable: the other’s strength imposes.
For when the rose’s scarlet clothes give way to black of mourning,
We know in spring new buds will bring fresh flowers with the dawning.
The walls, of course, have no recourse to self-regeneration,
And every crack beneath the black begins a degradation
From which there is no turning back without the intervention
Of masons with a mortar mix for crumble circumvention.
So view anew the rose which blooms from scenes of conflagration,
Without the slightest bit of help, in blatant celebration
Of Life and Love, blue skies above—whatever takes your fancy
While sipping True Course Chardonnay beneath walls slightly chancy.
Standing Still
Within your frame,
my mind supposes,
were spent countless days
of wine and roses.
Upon your verdant,
well manicured grounds,
delighted patrons have
made their rounds.
O Chateau de Boswell,
of strongest stock,
with skill you were hewn
from solid rock.
Though by fierce flames
you’ve been impinged,
your stalwart visage
now scorched and singed,
one gaze upon you,
our hearts still inspire.
You have withstood
your trial by fire.
10/11/2020
a will to live
Rose comes
four seasons,
Rose blooms
striving in no need
of one’s impression,
Rose lives
tasting lush as wine
& scorch as fire,
Rose withers
but is stubbornly scarlet
even beneath the ashes,
so goes Rose—
whispering: it feels
great to be
alive,
again.
Cool poem.
But I Swear To Stand
When in love fifty ways my flesh
could bleed, like grapes loose grapevines thresh,
and Good God knows the dead don’t bleed
what life I am striving afresh.
For gifts and praise, don’t miss, don’t miss—
a heart ablaze, remate to peace
full of footsteps with spring rebirth,
a sacred bliss like a soul kiss.
Unlike roses that overlook
their prickles, I care to unhook
by hook or by crook the color
of my thirst from a prayer book.
Feel it, feel it, Bartimaeus—
that particles of light so pious;
when lingering summer’s divine,
let your senses be not confused.
Ο, of old castle and fine wine,
the impatience of fire that whine
like lust, but if I must pick one—
you, I pick for I charm what’s mine.
In me, you free peacock belike;
what your love anthology like
I really don’t mind, and it can
not change what it is—what I like.
Whisper what womb am I supposed
to pledge my seeds if as lost cause
I am marked by self-blinded fool,
yet to woes I let none expose.
this is the wall that haunts the maiden
this is the wall of thee
of horrors come lords
torments for never end
seldom have crossed in peace
come forth, dear one
as your bravery shall ring true
though i must warn
you must come without hopes of won
for only the weak ones break through
this is the wall that kills the girl
for she, is the almighty
her resistance is honored
though her rebel belongs to another world
the dream that let’s her dream
face this wall without obedience
for that gift is never free
defy the dead they prize
wither not, great one
run long away, this way
Chateau Boswell
A withered rose crowns a stem,
Having seen far better days,
Erect standing proud behind,
Chateau Boswell clear of haze.
The sandstone bricks emanate,
Timeless beauty of an age,
A rounded doorway now burnt.
Making news on the front page.
The structure was touched by fire,
Surrounded by burned terrain,
Wonder if the rose will live,
And produce flowers again.
Vines Still Have Their Roots and Stems
Once there stood Chateau Boswell
now in ruins burned away;
Private estate of vintners
of Bordeaux and Chardonnay.
The steep hillside vineyards
of volcanic soils, ash and clay
are next to Glass Mountain
where three fires joined and burned today.
No one knows the cause,
but they say dying vegetation
promoted the “Glass Fire, “
and the chateau devastation.
The Chateau Boswell legacy
will outlive the fire.
The healing vines of time
with lava soil will soon conspire.
Vines still have their roots and stems;
The soil was made more fertile.
The chateau roof will be restored.
Sturdy walls remain the girdle.
Burning has never conquered
What the rest of nature does.
Vintners will restore Boswell
To the glory that once was.
A half-burned rose in front of
The chateau is half alive;
Symbol of the soul of mankind
That staunchly will survive.
Napa Valley Vineyards Cringe in Terror
Napa Valley vineyards cringe in terror.
Consuming blazes racing down the hills.
Harvested grapes in vats of the vintner
Dissipating drops as each barrel spills.
Chateau Boswell feels the wrath of nature
Untamed because of man’s mismanagement.
Vegetation dried the greatest danger
Feeding a conflagration imminent.
Bordeaux bottles burst as do cabernet;
Favored by the sommelier tasting set.
From roots, vines regenerate some spring day
To face again California’s threat.
Undaunted stands the half-burned rose in pain
Surveying destruction as fires wane.
I am the man who bred the Rose,
That by the Chateau Boswell grows,
Obliterated by the flames,
While my creation there remains.
This Englishman of wealth and fame,
With many letters to his name,
Produces roses, strong and bright,
By growing in Vermiculite.
Or “Hydrous Phyllosilicate,”
(It’s proper name I have to state)
As used in many industries,
For fire-retardant properties.
This rose, I called, “The Desert Star,”
The finest I had bred so far,
I tried to light it with a match,
But not one leaf or bud would catch.
So now the wine has ceased to flow,
And connoisseurs refuse to go,
While all around is ashen blight,
My “Desert Star” is shining bright.
A Fiery Kiss
A fiery kiss did this
No this was no union of bliss
A place where wine and taste did exist
There came an unwelcome guest with a fiery kiss
The house the vineyard dear lord there’s no quick fix
Let replanting begin from the destruction of a fiery kiss
The Wine Glass Shattered
The wine glass shattered
The people of Napa scattered
By a fiery wall they were battered
The joy of wine and song indeed mattered
We were made sad as the wine glass shattered
Nanditesh Nilay
16-10-2020
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover ,
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
The fire around
The fire outside
You tasted both
You tasted might
You burnt within
You lost the sight
Oh Grapes, dear Grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover ,
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
The fire around
The fire outside
You tasted both
You tasted might
You burnt within
You lost the sight
Oh Grapes, dear Grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Nanditesh Nilay
16-10-2020
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover ,
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Oh Grapes , dear grapes
The fire around
The fire outside
You tasted both
You tasted might
You burnt within
You lost the sight
Oh Grapes, dear Grapes
Your green cover
Your black cover
Why undraped
Why looking fade
Oh Grapes, dear Grapes
Nanditesh Nilay
16-10-20
Bring that rain
Chateau Boswell
Not looking well
The winery
The vineyard
All looking pale
The Napa Valley
Disrobed again
Inside the door
The lonely den
Tasteless and dry
Listening to your cry
But emerge again
Which brings back pride
And cools that pain
Oh! Napa Valley
Bring that rain
Rebirth
By Kelly Okoniewski
A door I open to a better version
Of the greatness we have lost
To this task complete immersion
Of my heart, my sadness tossed
My flower singed and drooping
But my stem is strong and steady
Gather myself; regrouping
For rebuilding, I am ready
I look through a broken window-pane
And see the vast potential down below
From this loss we will gain
A new love that we will grow
Good morning, Frankincense
I think of you, of fields of roses, and brooks
of undiluted wines,
Of new seasons, of poets and lyrical splendid lines.
I think of your luster form, delicate spells,
the rubric lights, the eyes
Of graced, rainbow nectars and the thunder
that fill up my skies.
In a throbbing verse, of mild pomegranates,
becalming winds and soul flights
There I hear a woven jazz fluttering in sheer delights.
I think of galbanum, of that unfolding scent,
the falling rains, the screen movies
Of our loud longings, of spinning body musical scores,
and climatic kiss.
I think of that mirthful summertime touch,
and the vine-dews
You formed as you pulled aside your clothes and
your sacramental self melted away my flues.
I think of that poetry, of those easeful words, and I know
The same many passions of the piano.
I tell you of granaries; I speak of wines
(and brooks bubbling more)
Of jazz, and poetry with no broken score.
Lamenting Chateau Boswell
Red was the rose, blushing and perfuming.
Choice was the wine they were consuming.
Sad was the day winds became unruly
and flames torched the vines with a fury.
Nature unleashed a season of pain.
Now only silence and secrets remain.
Chateau Boswell – Napa Valley (2020)
The trees become complicit once the flames
with tinder and the swirling wind are fed;
an ash-and-smoke enveloped skyline frames
the mountains and the hills which men have fled.
The vineyards are a battleground unused
to Nature’s rage, for newly in the fight
they fall before a fire that’s amused
how feebly we can douse its orange light.
A bastion to Bacchus is no match
for blazing, seething heat that cracks its stones,
that chars its rose beds, burning plants like thatch,
or acid stripping melted flesh from bones.
Such scorched earth conflagrations are a test
to see Mankind’s resilience at its best.
Chateau Boswell
A chateau scorched, as was the rose,
singed by a wall of heat and flame.
The fire ignited — no one knows
how or why or who’s to blame.
Both blighted by the blaze and heat
born on the shifting wind the blew
became ravenous fire’s meat
broiling the roses where they grew.
The cruel nature of the fire
wildly snatching as it goes —
a door, a window — on the pyre–
a woods, a winery, and a rose.
All Napa glowing orange-red
smoking up the fruit-filled vines
tearfully the lifeblood bled
toasting on the Boswell wines.
Proud beauty more than forty years
she stood with roses ’round her grown.
She will not now sink down in tears
tho’ all be burned except the stone.
Chateau Boswell
A chateau scorched, as was the rose,
singed by a wall of heat and flame.
The fire ignited — no one knows
how or why or who’s to blame.
Both blighted by the blaze and heat
born on the shifting wind that blew
became ravenous fire’s meat
broiling the roses where they grew.
The cruel nature of the fire
wildly snatching as it goes —
a door, a window — on the pyre–
a woods, a winery, and a rose.
All Napa glowing orange-red
smoking up the fruit-filled vines
tearfully the lifeblood bled
toasting on the Boswell wines.
Proud beauty more than forty years
she stood with roses ’round her grown.
She will not now sink down in tears
tho’ all be burned except the stone.
Climate Fire
Charred brown stone. The odor of burnt roses,
red and lingering over desiccated
stems, dead leaves, its beauty scarce abated,
even as its essence decomposes,
dissipates into the smoke that poses
as a summer mist, a scene created
as a reverie so long awaited,
castle where a shattered dream reposes.
This is how it is when fire rages
in a nation’s soul. Denying facts
kills just as surely as the woodman’s axe,
and yet despite the evidence, naught changes.
Perhaps this is the future we have earned,
where castles, vinyards, rose gardens can burn.
Temple Torch
On star-strung bead of rosary a lumen light profane
Repent in pose placebic rows in temple tomb arcane
Ensnaring fevered frond afroth on kindled carousel
Of bole and branch implore celestial spires shivered knell
Lo trespass of unwholly soil once verdure vestal voiced
Enshrined in azure symphony on wings seraphic hoist
When flight and flame and orbic rain of elemental mar
Besiege the viridescent verge by mortal vultures scar
Harmonic hymn in terror toiled with venom vapours whelm
Betouch by babel blistering an erst idyllic realm
A sanctuary to leaf and loam to wild untethered beast
Through teeth of ruination torn unhumankind unceased
To sky with limbs in arabesque a yearning cry recourse
Surrender sylvan sacrament when raked of verdant force
A flickered fang aflame on skin of sapling writhed in vain
In embers bake the bones of earth amidst assassins’ reign
Those palmers praise to heaven sent now sunder world apart
Renounce remiss to resurrect and reason a restart
Enwrapped in woes of squandered deed while naught for Nature weep
Who lonely in her ashfill crypt through ecocide asleep
If you look closely you can see
Shadows of what I used to be
But now I’m broken, bent, and burned
Is this the point of no return?
I once stood proud beneath the peak
Adorned with steel and roses meek
But now I crumble at your feet
Struck down by smoke and reckless heat
The world around me, still it spins
On ignorant and careless whim
I mourn my glory on my own
Graveyards of ashes and of stones
I wonder if it’s worth the try
Or if the good things always die
Chateau Boswell Burnt in Glass Fire
Don’t cry for drooping blackened rose
or for the chateau’s scorched stone
or for grapevines in flattened rows
or for the bottles shattered on stone.
or for Dionysian afternoon
long gone in burnt-out tasting rooms
or for lost bees and paths flower-strewn
or for oak barrels fire consumes.
Cry, if you must, for 2020 vision lost,
for smoky taste in wine after a burn,
for beauty the rose no longer hosts,
for grief ignored by need to soldier on.
For spilled sun like wine on black terrain.
For ashes, estate of man in ruin.
Human ardor, human dreams —
And all around us Nature teems —
Reified in stock and stone,
What’s lost in flames shall be regrown.
Chateau Boswell Stands Alone
What volumes written into reddish stone
The turret stands beleaguered and alone
And near the charred and heart-red savaged rose
A line of time and beauty surely flows
Time’s author spelled the heat of fire’s rages
It licked the land and slurped the vineyard’s wages
White of dust, or reddish, darkly jaded
Bemoan the hour: Boswell’s been invaded
I put my sonnet in the comments section on the 16th, but it has not yet appeared. Could one of the competition organisers help me out?
When I tried to re-submit the sonnet, I was told that it had already been submitted.
Done! Sorry for the delay.
MOURNING TINTERN ABBEY
The flash of flame, the searing of the soul
The wrath of Nature mocking what men build;
The bricks, the rose, the dreams devoured whole…
O, who can measure grief for what was killed?
I think of Tintern Abbey lost to time.
The ocean floor that is Titanic’s home;
The dreams destroyed, the works of art sublime
Entombed beneath Jerusalem and Rome.
As dies the rose so must we face our fate:
Our days of living are so very brief;
The winds of change come hard and seldom straight —
Singeing beauty, singing us to grief.
To tame the world comes at a dire cost —
Tears of ash which baptize what we’ve lost.
IN RUIN THERE IS BEAUTY STILL
In ruin there is beauty still
Not just the stinging sense of loss
for what is gone: the trees, the hill,
abodes of brick and leafy moss;
For mourning need not break the will
Of life to overcome the cross.
In ruin soul-wrecked pain is wrought.
Sad-silenced is the beaten heart
The battle that was nobly fought
Is lost, the castle torn apart.
But banish dark despair from thought!
Death’s victory shall cleave apart!
From ruin life begins anew
Grieve not as doors and chapters close!
These woods will thrive as they once grew
The land is rich, the brook still flows…
Despair must not ignore what’s true.
A rose though burnt remains a rose
I made a typo on the second to last line. It should read “Despair must not ignore what’s true.” Thanks.
Fixed-Mike
Beauty
How to Choose?
To live in Stone
Or to die in Rose
Both form Beauty
of their own, kind
Chateau Boswell – Napa Valley – Sonnet II (2020)
A regiment of flames converged to gauge
an architectural misfit from beyond
a continent, an ocean and an age
of yore that brought to mind our Old World bond.
So Chateau Boswell stood its ground alone
as flames descended from a glowering hill –
an Alamo of glass and slate and stone,
at mercy of the wind’s capricious will.
The swiftly-marching conflagration breached
the vineyard ere it razed the famed estate;
consuming grape and woody vine it reached
the winery and clinched the chateau’s fate.
And through the smoke the shattered walls still stand,
a monument to Nature’s callous hand.
Charred with wilt, with stones unbuilt
Yet door and root remain intact.
Chateau undone, it could not outrun
Fire that paints in black.
A damaged rose, but it still goes,
the way of all things living.
It must fall, yet I am in awe,
That life brings new beginnings.
Here’s to hope and to open doors
That fire can not keep closed!
Here’s to health to you and yours,
And to a trellised vine that grows!
This was beautiful! Good Luck
Beauty meets Beast
the Hindenburg crashes
the spectators clap;
it all ends in ashes
Beauty meets Beast
blush burning her cheeks,
giddy with Stockholm syndrome
The story’s the same
each loop around,
an endless palindrome
Unbomb Nagasaki
unburn the castle
restore the forest
unfight the battle
The asteroid strikes and unstrikes the Earth
the dinosaurs return
extinct in reverse
Beast reverts to Prince to beast
volcanic landscape gives way to the sea
Red, Red Wine Forever Flows
Red, red wine forever flows,
Inside deserted sandstone chateau,
On a bleak horizon, one red rose,
A fire of glass, heartache grows.
Inside deserted sandstone chateau,
Stories remain behind doors closed,
A fire of glass, heartache grows,
Smoke replaced by shattered Bourgogne.
Stories remain behind doors closed,
Nothing black or bleak to a Pinot Noir,
Smoke replaced by shattered Bourgogne,
New “flutes” to flame and play sweet scores.
Nothing black or bleak to a Pinot Noir,
On a bleak horizon, one red rose,
New “flutes” to flame and play sweet scores,
Red, red wine forever flows.
Old Vinyard
The rose grows to be mournful, not austere,
the edifice still standing that it served,
in need of patch, its equity unnerved;
they beckon with the opposite of fear
to embolden what as other each holds dear:
strong roots, the ground around them richly turved,
with each of them a face still gently curved;
more hope attends them than it might appear.
These days have come to test their will to stay
the thing they are, these weakened sun-scribed arcs
just tentatively strung from night to night
that even doubt moist weather’s erstwhile grey
for fear to brace a threat far worse than sparks:
to be abandoned by the rays of sight.
The orange fruit dove who perched upon an untouched sea of grace
Whistled gentle knells of vapor that ascended into space
By the time her prayers reached heaven, her home had burnt to ash
A hollow shell of dreams that now will never come to pass
The rubble stone that once had forged a mighty wall of gray
Now shattered into vagrant ruins mulled and swept away
Not long ago the pediment was hemmed with Grecian vines
Whose skeletons now waste away like spirits lost in time
And though she mourns for what she’s lost and for what may have been
The orange fruit dove will take to sky and start to build again
For creatures live a thousand lives and she has come to know
Through soil bathed in somber tears, new life begins to grow
Reminiscence
Cowled shadow-shapes in dim doorways, prescient,
Observe burnt roses, ochre stalks, all bent
Yet still recall how ordered living was.
Sharp odors from the burning, and the buzz
Of hungry bees, who search and fail, then sigh
Along the grapevine, now all charred and dry,
Where graceful gladioli climbed to Heaven,
Like medieval ladies, in jeweled hennin;
When bells chimed over shattered glass, poems rhymed.
Trapped deep within a fortress sieged by flame,
This lonely, blazing sanctum will not die.
From Screaming Eagle to a lesser name,
The vineyard’s heart will live to see blue sky.
If not in mortal form then in immortal minds,
These shimm’ring vaults of nectar shall be saved.
For time is ever-razing and unwinds,
And yet one soul can douse the fires depraved.
If but a single bud survives the blaze,
Then time’s unyielding rage is not the end.
With passion shining through the smoky haze,
The spirit of the craft shall still transcend.
So long as those who hold it don’t concede,
A brand new vine will blossom from the seed.
Cheerio, Black
We dye skin?
And peaches to the brim
That test we skimmed
Too close to the rim
Did you buy your vim?
Maybe you love Jim?
But do you hate your kin?
Like you do your limb?
Blood by a dead pin
Should we dine with some gin?
Maybe call for a din?
Tell me close, I’m grimm
“Opportunity in Ruins”
A green barrow grown to mourn
A baked apple tempting to a thorn.
Slip a sip by the pin tip
Feeding a root ownership,
A simple proof dripping merciless
Against a brick’s permanence.
Hints of charcoal licorice.
Pale fire bounding tigerish –
Paw prints in black currants
Evidence this infernal occurrence,
A crimson tongue flaked in gold
Leaving darkly glass and ashes cold.
Yet wait on tears to pour.
Some tomorrow making more.
Another act in Napa opera
Only degrees bad as phylloxera.
All kingdoms rise and fall.
Hush and hear the ghosts they call.
Mouths melting glass blow a sphere
Another world growing clear.
Moved by Equidifference
I pressed the door open and you came forth.
Background, we saw was stark; foreground, two gowns.
Static vision I said we saw twice more.
To draw, we did. Unwell, too frail, get hail.
Tomorrow, with sorrow, we share the curve with towns.
We must take turns to screech glued joints; we’ll prowl.
Admire us fired, hot pyre, under tyres; we doth.
Doth it; the trick of wet attire; all guns.
Give it the heft, that zip, holy dipped; with gall.
End me, end us, doth it; feel us, we’re froth.
This thing, this dream; this shine we see brings downs.
Too here, too good; this thing we see at fore.
We must, we should compare this day to jail
We’re stuck; equal, we march. We’re sole in towns
Write here, take this, let this; this pape’, your oath
In time, they’ll know; we’ll show, we’re one; no more
The Lees-Soaked Ground
With translucent clutch,
Glass lifts to lips warm.
The first tasting touch
Swiftly turns to harm.
A flare of licks sops
Wine bulbs on their string,
Desiccating crops,
Accolage singeing.
The thirst spreads beyond
Vino’s sumptuous rows.
Glass opening yawns
On brick patios.
An iron door warps
As it is swigged down,
Sealing vineyard’s corpse
In the lees-soaked ground.
The Charred Cherish
Outside a vineyard charred from fire
A withered rose stood all expired.
She looked and saw within the door
An image she had seen before.
Battered like her from flames and smoke
Just standing there and ne’er one spoke.
The sentry at the entryway
Was glad to have her there that day.
Then softly said she, “My time’s done.
They’ll deadhead me, then there’ll be one.”
He gently said, “They’ll take me down,
But you’ll still grow within the ground.
Till then we together wait,
Knowing what will be our fate.”
Ode to Chateau Boswell
You loom in sooty gloom and tombstone grief,
In dusty shades of faded yesterdays.
One withered witness whispers of a thief
Who snatched tomorrow’s purpose and its praise:
A portent torched the sultry evening skies –
‘Twas Sirius who scorched then stole your soul.
The blaze of mad dog days razed grape and vine,
Left sylvan sprawl as dark as raven coal.
One parched and brittle rose blooms in the eyes
Of ghosts who sing of merriment and wine.
They sing of ripest flesh and plumpest fruit,
Of sun-dipped sips and crystal-clinking toasts:
The aria of ambrosia in a flute
That floats on claret clouds as twilight coasts
Beyond the pyre and mourning’s sear and sting,
Where dreams of Dionysus deign to dance.
I taste the spill of harvest’s luscious splash.
I feel the thrill of summer’s giddy glance.
I see your bonhomie in feathered wing –
A phoenix breathes beneath your shroud of ash.
It was many and many a year ago,
Beside that ravaged wine cell,
That a rose there lived whom you may know
As the lover of Chateau Boswell.
On that fateful day in September
The wine was boiling in bottles.
Vaporous, it swam in the hot air.
The blaze was drunk on its own
prowess, it was a dragon’s lair.
The castle, poised like a lioness
but could not swallow the flames
Yet the singed red petal survived
in the thinning woods, it claimed.
The leaves curled, papery dead
where the bark was eaten down
The metal knocker also burned,
glowing till, a ferruginous brown.
Spot fires joined hands they say.
They were hungry, and untamed,
ran by the road to glass mountain
wrath of this element, thus named.
The chateau now sleeps, drugged
with an unfinished poem in its wall.
The valley waits for it to wake up
to a song, filling up its empty hall.
The Last Taste
After bottles of wine and tears that refuse to run;
I can finally accept the fact that I am all alone.
I never knew how hard my tears could fall.
I never knew at all.
I do not know how to fall out of love.
I never knew how to stop the tears once they fall.
I never wanted any of this pain;
I never wanted any of this, not at all.
Now when I try to sleep, all I can dream is of the chateau that lost you and me.
You said you would give me, and I was to receive; the vineyard, the ocean, as far as the eye could see.
Now I see nothing.
Nothing at all.
Nothing in front or behind me.
Nothing at all.
The tears just stopped.
What does that mean?
Am I okay now?
I take comfort in the fact that I will not drown.
Are blooming fruits in front of me?
I cannot yet see.
Darkness and silence are consuming me.
I lost the light and I cannot breathe.
At all.
My cheeks are as dry as the wine.
The tears forgot how to cry.
I forgot love.
I feel nothing.
Nothing at all.
I would have loved you until death.
Now I cannot live my life.
I cannot live at all.
But tomorrow is a new day.
The sun will shine a new ray.
I have no other choice than choosing to be okay.
My tears will no longer fall as I welcome a new day.
You will be but nothing one of these days,
Nothing… At all.
Dust
Love, loyalty, respect and honesty are free.
If you take me for granted it plants the seed.
The sun no longer shines on us, but the plant still grows.
The plant that was seeded with love has become an illusion.
The seeds of mistrust, uncertainty, fear and confusion have laid the foundation of growth.
What once was bright and full of life withers with neglection.
The plant thrives in the dark; all alone, under the waning moon.
Upon reflection, the seeds were planted in soil with oppression.
Established by infertility we repressed how beautiful it should be.
Nothing can survive when starved with rejection of affection.
The flowers of conversion have begun their bloom. Lost in a void we thrived too soon.
Eclipsed by the irony that we started off as friends.
I can’t move past what could have been.
I thought we would ascend. Instead the flowers turned into fake feelings playing pretend.
You never know what nature intends.
The leaves of memories are filled with dreams of what we once were and strived to achieve.
The night storm whelped what we had grown.
All hope of patience is withering like a cyclone.
From the thorns I bleed. This should not sting.
Along the way you became a part of me.
I pull away and push out the pain.
The scars will always remain.
The stem was the weakest of them all.
It was the first life from the seed.
As it grew it forgot to breathe.
With no saturation or air to grow, the mirage of emotion begins to show.
There is so much I needed to know.
Shadows cast doubt on our fantasy.
Reality was the death of that growing seed.
An oasis of words having gone unsaid.
Life cannot sustain without growth and trust.
During extinction all that remains converts to dust.
© Jamie Clay
Withered
Behind locked door she hides
Cruel world void of love
Warm afternoon strolls forgotten
Loss overrides, and grounds neglected
The garden weeps
The rose withers and longs for her return
Sobbing in the cool moonlight
Tears fall behind door and walls
The pain of betrayal cuts deep
She hides ‘til silver-haired
Tall grass and brown rot
Flowers die, as does her heart
Remembered Taste
Steadfastly here still stands the stone
that perseveres as if the bone
of perished flesh that nature’s pyre
has turned to ash and dust of fire
that devastated hope and dream
for forty years well yoked as team
to reap from nurtured, fruited vines
the press of yields becoming wines
distilling essence craft creates
of love that labor cultivates
as sweetness and as dryness found
uniquely to intrigue so bound
it lingers as remembered taste
of all that passion bravely faced.
Dreams
Visions in a dream revealed to RTB of a wine glass filled.
A tower but no castle seen was standing on the Napa green.
Bounty flowed in a continuous stream, until flames took this golden dream.
Gates built by passion and imagery were closed by 10 20 20.
The truth of years now smoke and ash as the tower dream dissapeared in a flash.
A Rose at Chateau Boswell
A rose who has no offering,
No perfume or regal display,
For that was taken from her,
When the fires came her way.
Singed and stripped of beauty,
For she was beautiful and fair,
A remnant of her former self,
Now in pain and total despair.
Her spirit has been hardened,
Yet she will grow once more,
Bringing her beauty back to life.
Her reserection an encore.
Toni Newell 31st October 2020.
Who set the flame
To the heart of the oak?
That ravaged rose.
Not for Long
In death you stand erect, punctured by heat,
A skeleton of memory stripped bare.
As barrels wait expectantly beneath,
Entombed in darkness, wrapped in cooling air.
Outside with grace a rose prepares to die,
Each day it cries another shriveled leaf.
Smoke hides the gaze of smiling sun in sky,
Life’s strings lay severed, wilting into grief.
But grapes will grow again from richer ground,
Old charcoal spirits sapped for sweeter ends.
Begin again! In budding shoots be found,
For seeds will sprout and wounded walls will mend.
So tap old barrels, sip from simpler times,
For soon we’ll taste new pleasures of the vine.
The Great Renewal
It opened with a thunderous roar
And from the fleeing wind, it tore
Those autumnal leaves whose tinder there
Drew soot black lines of ink in air
The sky did crack and with arrow taut
Did Nature draw and with quiver aim
And laid in wait for the foes she sought
To dust from dust, and ash from flame
“To my hills unbidden,” the grandson cried
And as he watched, his grandfather died
But why, cried he, what crime have I
That I might face such penalty
And when the fire had set and done
When the night had laid its quiet claim
It’s infernal course had finally run
No sound came forth, except the flame
And in the branches of the blackened vines
The angel’s harp did weeping pine
But not sweet melodies as before
But a parting song, called A Closing Door
And the mother joined, and the father too
The tears like a flood, a weeping vain
And his little sister, what could she do?
She cried, but could not move the flame
But this little one, she crept outside
She spoke to the trees, and vines on their sides
And she spoke to the walls, to the birds
And even these, with lament, answered her calls
And her father came, and he also cried
Head held in his hands, crying, “Who is to blame?”
Pacing round, hands in his pockets, then again at his side
And he shouted aloud, saying, “Who can stop the flame?!”
And he said, “Speak to me Old Ones, as you once did.”
But their tongues were still, their faces hid
The echo spoke no more
Only the parting song, A Closing Door
“It’s too late for me,” cried the rose, as her merlot petals fell
And sank into the smoky haze, or ash, the same
The earth too weeps her last, yea she wept upon the knell
Saying, “What have I done? In anger I brought the flame.”
And so, how does this end, the o’er ripe gourd to rot
The fowl and fauna weep of their lot
The choking weed to rise and vine to bend
The once sweet grapes are crushed, the laughter ends
But the father said to his little child, as she hid in her mother’s skirt
“You shall rise again, my sweet, like a poppy on the morning plain.”
When all the ground is ash and these black days have turned the earth
And all the people weep, but know, that too shall pass the flame
And so the song played, A Closing Door
And the sound of flame was heard no more
The stone was scrubbed – the soot was ground, but not quite gone
The rose had died, but the seed lived on
The Resilient Rose
Embrace by embers grace
Tinged with slight flame center untouched
Guarded by fate
Reminisce of the wild fires remain
Stained upon more then just wall, door, forest, vineyards and chateau set engulfed
Was someone livelihood that turned to ashe
Hope with in this rose
Still remained
There are some in life who are also liked to this rose. Seemingly burned on the outside but soft and untouched at the core
We may have been shaped by the wildfires of life but as the is roses resilience remained.
So to do we have the choice to forge our won resilience in the flames.
With the blessing of the
Time will not pause for me
The rose will fade to be replaced
This is how it should be
They once built in stone to show their might
They started an empire of a thousand years
Over in a blink
Shattered in the fire of a thousand red hot suns
or Maybe just a brush fire
And then there is nothing but the roses
Weeping and shedding their own lifes blood
As all that is left of the memory.
But they did not go gentle, they stood defiant against the shadows of the sky
When its my time I will walk along the beach.
Stand in the shallows with my skirt tucked in my undies.
Let the incoming breakers skittle cheerfully over the sand.
Until a big one gallops up and splashes me full on, so I have sand and salt water everywhere.
Sea foam in my hair.
I hear the mermaids singing each to each
So I will leave the beach and swim out to join them.
My recently dyed purple-red hair
will fan out behind me like a unicorn’s mane.
My hair will tangle with the sirens as we wheel ecstatically down.
Looking up I see bubbles between me and the moon.
I will grab my memories in my fist
and leap defiantly into the mouth of the Kraken.
They will not weep for me.
I forbid it with all of my fierce heart.
Go with a bang. Not a whimper.
WISDOM SPRINGS
I have parked my soul outside the city
To find if there is enough space for me
To breathe with dignity in burnt Chateau Boswell
In the ruins half way through
I step over sleeping stories of the past
Testimony of wine
In me sinners and saints meet
To manufacture fantasies
Fire tarnished all assumptions
Destruction dethroned
Wine and vineyard
Now hope lingers on clueless walls
Hopeless road leads to the native land
Of burnt roses
Where birds fly across the face of logic and rationality
Clarity dissolves
Existence invites texture of life
Butterfly shall emerge from a cocoon
What unstable world brings
Out of nothingness wisdom springs
“Do Flowers Burn?”
“Do flowers burn?” my daughter said
With innocence writ on her head.
At first the question seemed silly
But she did not relent her plea,
Her face now flushing angry red.
Our supper ended; all were fed.
The stairs, to sleep, the fam’ly tread.
My daughter would not let me be:
“Do flowers burn?”
The thought I now began to dread
That even beauty winds up dead.
I looked upon my frail Lily;
Her loving eyes glared back at me.
I told her, planting her in bed,
“The flowers burn.”
“Have You Strength to Drink of the Cup?”
The memory remains despite the fire
Of fertile hills and clustered purple grape;
(A kingly sign for consummate desire)
The Everlasting takes a stricken shape.
So strange that suffering would paint with grace
And set ablaze the petalled flames of flow’r.
A Burning Light came to that darkened place,
A garden where the darkness had its hour.
Now hangs a rose outside the wine’ry walls
Its color blackened like a bloody bruise.
The nat’ral thing submits to nat’ral laws:
A kind of Calvary it did not choose.
A bitter vintage pressed, the cup of strife:
The seed must die to yield abundant life.
The raging fire fought
Dying hungry embers
Still quenched the grape
But ah! the vine remembers
Castle
Here lies the fierce castle
that begot my ancestors.
No wooden drawbridge unites
its innermost with the outside:
Time has eaten its shape,
rain has dissolved its hardiness,
sun has broken its strength.
No more arrows fly from deserted arrowslits—
these long scars in the rough walls—
to reduce and dispel ranks of foes.
Only stones remain, and many gone
to patch houses, walls, wells.
They became tombstones,
grounded ships never meant
for land’s inactivity.
Only wind walks through its broken avenues,
softly, like a maiden hand’s caress;
and when riotous, coerces atoms of stones
to join its hallucinating cavalcade.
The wind crafts sounds that mimic the past
and I hear them all so well echoing
in the silent night of my days:
dogs howling, men’s voices, horses hooves,
the sweet sounds of a dulcimer
entwined with my lady’s voice…
The rose garden gone her memory stayed behind
and courts me at every step I take
from within the past.
I love it and I hate it, and you ask, how can this be?
I really don’t know, but Christ, it’s crucifying me.
Glasses
It was our future once
winery, flowers, tours.
But the fires ended that
with flamed-blackened décor.
It was our future once.
Modest dreams. Hope de jour.
Yes, the fires ended that.
No whining- we’ll endure.
The Rose
Sheltered in stone, no longer bone,
He stares with unseeing eyes at the rose before him,
Unable to descry the billowing smoke,
Nor feel the heat as flames licked the ground,
All that remains, are brick and mud,
A sign, some leaves, a single rose.
A single damaged rose
Waits to be picked,
Waiting outside castle walls
Beautifully it sits.
Though charred, there remains
An eerie beauty,
Captures you almost
Like a line of poetry.
What wine-filled memories
Those burn walls must hold,
How many fingers
Must have traced this rose.
Oh, Sweet chateau
I shall drink to you,
For only the best glass of red
Within your walls were brewed.
Beauty may be scathed
But nonetheless remains.
Just as life on Earth
Is threatened but remains.
It’s the everlasting piece
of vibrant life
that keeps us holding on.
As the rose survives the fire,
So do we.
Pantoum for Boswell Winery
One burnished rose speaks of hope
Within the root the will to rise
To future with a new born scope
Held within the heart’s comprise
Within the root the will to rise
Where dreams of life still grope
Held within the heart’s comprise
Where vines and people seek to grow
For dreams of life still grope
The past a stalwart for the wise
Where vines with people grow
Held by faith that will arise
The past a stalwart for the wise
Who look ahead with wider scope
Held by faith that will arise~
One burnished rose speaks of hope.
No Loss
Alas for the sparkling wines
I am too young to drink
O tastes that I will never know
Tears not for me to shed
Alas! The pleasures of Paris are
Weak in the shadow of these doomed walls
Dionysus in his fury
Cleansed the land of this impurity
Clarity in the roses.
Sonnet for Chateau Boswell, Napa Valley
by Laura Olney
The blocks of stone hand hewn still standing tall
Her soldier half has perished, his helmet gone
Her body scorched she mourns the fruits of fall
The babies of the fields and a little one
An injured owl who nestled beneath the eave
Watched folks below taste grapes and fill the kegs
She kept him safe so he could one day leave
With mended heart and two strong skinny legs
Her manly metal doors and gates so fine
No longer welcome guests or watch the wine.
The mother’s tears cry with the rain to see
Her beautiful dress in tatters down below
Dead roses and black bones of mighty trees
But worse the news she does not want to know
As night grows cold, she mourns what she loved best
And dreams of beating wings in soft night glow
A beautiful owl come home to check her nest
Spring babies up above and down below
What is this sudden warmth on a winter’s night?
The owl, returning home in the pale moon light!
Ellonie Lamarre
November 2, 2020.
A Votre’ Sante
Farewell ami, we’ll cherish thee, ever forth our memories shall bloom. You’ve fed our souls with hymns of love no fire could deplume.
Beneath the earth your heartbeat dwells, these vineyards ever hallowed. Time remember thee my friend for as long as you lie fallow.
Endearingly your family waits and once again in time, you’ll be our blend of loveliness that grows upon the vine.
OOPS! It seems I submitted the rough draft, rather than final. Please forgive!
Sonnet for Chateau Boswell, Napa Valley
by Laura Olney
The blocks of stone hand hewn still standing tall
Her soldier half has perished, his helmet gone
Her body scorched she mourns the fruits of fall
The babies of the fields and a little one
An injured owl who nestled beneath the eave
Watched folks below taste grapes and fill the kegs
She kept him safe so he could one day leave
With mended heart and two strong skinny legs
Her shadow still brings coolness in the morn
She waits for buzzing, busy bugs to stir
And wishes that another child be born
In need to look so lovingly at her
While manly metal doors and gates so fine
No longer welcome guests or watch the wine.
The mother’s tears cry with the rain to see
Her beautiful dress in tatters down below
Dead roses and black bones of mighty trees
But worse the news she does not want to know
A helpless child she shielded many days
The wounded wing was on the mend it seemed
Another child to die with loving gaze
Not coming home to nest as she had dreamed
As night grows cold, she mourns what she loved best
She dreams of beating wings in soft night glow
A beautiful owl comes home to check her nest
Spring babies up above and down below
What is this sudden warmth on a winter’s night?
The owl, returning home in the pale moon light!
“Of broken glasses and spilled wines”
Your colourful presence was never in doubt
Your vineyard was fruitful in and out
Wines flowed from the crushing of grapes
And were drunk by those in special capes
The world knew you and revered you
It took one terrible light to disfigure you
A fire to burn the glasses and shatter the winery
The vineyard, once beautiful, is no more
Wines of centuries before
Wines of centuries to come
All spilled with no respite
Chateau Boswell becomes a name in history
A place now shrouded in mystery
Of broken glasses and spilled wines
“Broken but standing tall”
Many things have been broken in history
Some have remained so
Others have stood tall
Chateau Boswell was one of the broken ones
One lighted flame brought it down to its knees
It has remained a place once known for wines
It remains known for its lush vineyard
Its glasses have been shattered by the flames
Its gardens have been torched
But it stands tall as always
For cowards are not remembered
But the brave stand tall because no one forgets them
“Oh Chateau Boswell The Glorious One”
As the sun rays shone to kiss your petals
Radiating glory you spread to kick men like pedals
Perfect colour dished out to glasses
We could only pray for more to fill our glasses
Swiftly did the odd days blew
Dark vapours coming out of the blue
Side to side, shade to shade, all laid to waste
Just as the fiery flames rage to wage
Oh Chateau Boswell the glorious one
Charred bricks and ashes – you were torn
In the lips of men you shall be endured
From the ashes a budding shall be ensured
“Chateau Boswell The Great”
Chateau Boswell the great
Your grapes spawned out gold
Your exquisite drops quenched the taste of noble men
The insiders you provide with shelter
The outsiders you provide with ecstasy
The young men and women celebrate your flavours
Even the old adores your colours
The world renders an applause
Now, you can’t hear them
Pristine taste tossed to the floors
The wine that opened up doors
Strong and fierce you were, now broken
Now broken by nature’s anger
Fair colour melts to ashes
The scents that called out names
Captivating but now a shadow
Alive but stands delusional
Draw nigh, I say to the day you resurrect
The bird the rose and the turret
A bird was in the turret in the wood,
Where tangled briar rose climbed, barred the way;
I heard the singing falling where I stood
At dusk, as golden light faded away.
I heard the sweetness falling, saw the flight,
Brown-feathered flutter of the slender wings;
And at the failing of the dusky light,
I heard the song the turning season sings.
The bird has flown, and through the window bare
The north wind blows, the only gold the leaves,
Yet still the rose climbs red to scent the air,
And for the turret’s faded glory grieves.
Chateau Boswell
The taste of sweet
Now is dry
We will not retreat
Or say goodbye
Fill the “glass”
Of charred remains
This soon will pass
With winter rains
Think back, old times
Memories keep
Beauty refines
Remember, don’t weep…
Craig Cruise
November 3, 2020
A Stone’s Throes
If I could weep,
I would have wept such tears,
At the site of her withering,
The flames approaching,
That they would have been quenched.
If I could remove myself,
From this responsibility to my caste,
I would have rushed to her,
To be found in harm’s way,
So she would have been sheltered.
She who gave her beauty to me,
Upon a summer’s morn,
Her fragrance embracing me,
All stoic and crusted,
With nothing to offer her,
But silent adoration.
If I could speak,
I would have told her,
From my vantage,
Upon this wall,
She will ever remain in bloom.
Chateau Boswell
Sweet scorched rose singed to its withered heart
Blackened in grimy soot these staunch ramparts
Once dewy pride of beige unflinching walls
Your crimson allure courted nature’s call
Green grew lush vineyards of chateau Boswell
Till fiend fire dubbed ‘Glass’ torched heaven to hell
Alas! Our winery’s perfume wafting sweet
Turned swift to fumes of orange heat
The heroic men steadfast fought hard at last
To save what now remains of glory past
And now reader raise a glass to toast
The ravaged remains of Napa’s boast
The glass you raise of sweetest wine to taste
Become lips of prayer, savour my best.
© Amrita Valan 2020
Out of the Past
Anita J Peiffer
November 3, 2020
I stood there in her shadow
Beneath a pillar tall and proud
She sat silent and alone
Yet her echoes cried aloud
She filled my head with visions
That never belonged to me
The sound of days gone by
Drifted as laughter on the breeze
I heard the pop of corks
And the clink of many glasses
Conversation that was lively
Amid cheers among the masses
A melody in the background
Seemed to say without a word
Stay here with me awhile
Where such joyfulness is heard
Inside was the candle’s glow
The sun was bright outside
Colors were soft and subtle
The richness of wine aside
I saw myself about to sit
At a table dressed and charming
When a bird flew high above
His cry both loud and alarming
He pulled me from my reverie
From the beautiful and the grand
The sky was gray with smoke
Desolation was here at hand
I looked upon her stone facade
Saw the pride beneath her scowl
Pain she simply could not feel
I felt deep within my bowel
Between her youth and older age
I felt her agonize and struggle
She had no wish to give in
Nor lie amidst the rubble
Just as I searched for meaning
Amid the smoke and fallen ash
She too would beg to question
Was I not built to last?
I am a place of dreams
Of heart and grace and soul
How can I lay defeated
And let destruction take its toll?
I turned as if to answer
Amid the blackened bit of cinder
Where once there burned a flame
No one could manage to hinder
There within the hopelessness
I spied the greatest wonder
A rose with petals gently singed
Burned not completely asunder
A curious sight it was indeed
This reminder of life’s duality
That in a world so unpredictable
One could overcome brutality
Ah, appearances do deceive
This life was at its end
No, but have another look
Perhaps it was about to begin
I don’t know how I knew
As I stood below in awe
The picture wasn’t of the past
In the vision that I saw
It wasn’t an end at all
Or days of old gone by
It was a whole new beginning
She’d hinted of on the sly
This remnant of time and stone
This was not to be her end
Somehow I knew in my heart
Chateau Boswell would rise again
The Silent Weeping
When yellowing pulp turns to black
not at once but in stages
the sick have time to set a trap
in hope to seize salvation
bones are hollow
brittle and dry
lungs have turned to jelly
some of us
may wither and die
and glorify the telling
Love this poem, Laurie! Short and powerful and captured my soul…
Thank you Laura, I really appreciate your feedback! Hope you’re taking care and stay safe.
Cheers
LL
What Happy People Used to Do
Please come in and sit down
Forgive my haphazard scattering of kitchen witch twigs
copper pots and cauldrons that swing from savoury sprigs
they bind me with twine so blood tight around my finger
reminds me of the mossy brine sipped from silver birch
The kind that doesn’t leak
Please watch your step
As I sweep away the light dust of nostalgia
The tea-leaves from past romances reduced to rotting flesh
Ignore the nosey rubber necks who lurk
About the place as if they owned it
Their wistful glances speak louder than words
Please mind the cozy
As it tipples along the toadstool floor
Polka-dotted with a high thread count
Pine needle sewn with stony sterility
Like the gauze that binds the hurt
And distracts me from the slow seeping stain
What was
Is no more
What once grew on the vine
Was divine
And made wine
Now is still
Against its will
Beyond the window sill
Yet there was
Just because
A story of what was
And is no more
Tasting of the wine
So divine
Of the lost vine
Time moves on
The window gone
The rise of dawn
Continues on
The rose is dead
But just ahead
Is only dread
What was
Is no more
Chateau Boswell
Reborn
It was known for its beauty
When the sun is up
The flowers and butterflies
Are the fairies that showers you with love
Morning dews are like crystals
That glitters on the green spread of life
And rain is a blessing when the atmosphere is hot.
When the sun sets again
The house made of stone stand alone
It acts like a guard
For the beauty that serves as his home
No matter how you see the difference
In your eyes or emotion
It will always remain a beauty
That only needs to be reborn.
With no words, old tan stone loved by many
Filled with secrets, and dark present
Though nighttime falls above
Fear not, tomorrow comes
Night too fades to light
Dried walls and dried roses by light revived
Light from the soul creeps
Creeps onto the ancient walls
Illuminates the mighty castle again
Grow the grapes illuminated by spirit
Stored in barrels to be refined
With the tender heart filled with care beside
Over the hill and throughout the chateau
Grow grapes from spirit and drink to content
Filling the soul once more
And revived the castle strong
It was here where I first savored your name
And learned that love can either taste of tannins and Tobacco leaves
Or licorice and rose petals
It was here where I learned that love gets better with age
And though Jesus turned water to wine
The true miracle lies in watching the evolution from seed to grape
It was here where I first became intoxicated on embered romance
Landscapes of drunken desires that burn like wildfires in glassy eyes
It was here where I learned that too much of something good can become destructive
So it was here where we said our last goodbye
wonderful poem. not too much. just enough. lovely.
Thank you so much Laura!
Petals charred
Caught off guard
Fire’s rage
Cannot gauge
Damage done
In long run
Castle stands
Over lands
Once fertile
Now defile
Hope remains
Though it pains
The Singing
Before the warped carcass of the metal door,
where fire whispered its radiant lie to stone,
the dead feet of ash speak of how everything glowed
before it blackened.
Thorns were defenseless to protect
petals from the assaulting fingers of flame
but every leaf gleamed as it ignited,
glowed and sang its own dirge
to fill the thrashing air with the timbre of perdition.
Flame spoke to cloud, cloud to stone,
Everything called to angels deep within the soil.
Nothing stilled the forbidden voice of smoke
slithering through vines.
The strong-throated song of destruction cleaved
The silent, dark heart of Chateau Boswell.
Sunlight on a wall,
on scorched roses, stiffened limbs,
on a door pulled shut.
Glass Fire
A rose wrought of silica and smelted in kiln
of raging caladity couldn’t by far describe
Its ordeal as ably as one that sited
apace with charred ruins of chateau Boswell.
Withal owing hues and habit; it virtue
evermore noted, impelling pens to scribe,
the grief that befell on its precious valley,
whereupon fine grapes of wine graced as symbol.
Dismal remains of fire-depleted chateaux
hint citadels, which endured ultion of wicked.
Land and livelihoods undid by Glass Fire,
gift to legacy of the year that’s dismal.
Yet poise, Valor, promise of future ascribe
remnants beholding eclat of preceded.
Glass Ghazal
Night wildfire on the trail to cinnabar and wine,
flames engulfed chateau and gardens, but charred the rose.
Light scent of tobacco, graphite, leafy herbs – gone,
in smoke when blaze ‘roared round chateau, gardens and rose.
It took no lives though many fled their home and keep,
few stately as the chateau, its gardens, the rose.
A blackened turret now opens to sky, no more
black currant fruit nose in chateau or rose.
Relics offer clues to native tribes who once walked
lands, now the estate of chateau, gardens and rose.
Wagons, robbers, and miners once traveled the road,
volcanic soils held old growth, no chateau, no rose.
Fierce winds of wildfire have shaped the next phase after
gleaming chateau stones, clipped gardens, bushes of rose.
In the wake of dark skies, when glass became deadly,
flames destroyed chateau and gardens, but charred the rose.
Ember of the Hope Aflame
Still stands a rose as if it grows
yet fragile statue heaven knows
becoming shards of its demise
perhaps as fertile womb to rise
where seed that falls to ashen earth
finds cover to await its worth —
the destiny it cannot sense
inert in hollow of suspense —
perhaps the warmth and moistened soil
that wakes it to instinctive toil
or death to serve a nobler cause
as richer earth or fill of jaws
or ember of the hope aflame
that art for shell of stone will frame.
Glass Fire
A rose wrought of silica and smelted in kiln
of raging calidity couldn’t by far describe
Its ordeal as ably as one that sited
apace with charred ruins of Chateau Boswell
Withal owing hues and habit; its virtue
evermore noted, impelling pens to scribe
the grief that befell on the precious valley
Whereupon fine grapes of wine graced as symbol.
Somber remains of fire depleted chateaux,
hint citadels which endured ultion of wicked.
Land and livelihoods undid by Glass Fire
gift to legacy of the year that’s dismal.
Yet poise, Valor, promise of future ascribe
remnants beholding eclat of preceded
As It Is
The earth will use the ash to build a rose
and stones will not be be withered by the heat.
Though tragic it may seem, there’s something knows
that victory is bound to all defeat.
The sky will take on all effects it nears.
Appears to catch the flames from tops of trees.
Blackens and glows and sparks; inspires worst fears.
At length refuses all but blue and breeze.
So little the time that we’re presented.
So great the speed with which it lightly flies.
Nothing should be overly lamented
the very least of all our luxuries.
Life’s doctrine emerges self-evident.
No rose has ever wished things different.
Hey maybe this is really silly but here goes. A sonnet.
Ruined gardens weep like human beings
at loss – most certainly – why wouldn’t they?
When all they love lies dead or falls away
-happiness, supposed meanings of things –
and time mocks, and sun or raging flame
and soil stripped bare, as dry as stone.
No hope. No help. Abandoned and alone
the roses gaze, astonished and insane.
Who comforts them? Who stands in protest?
Who stoops to take the compost to the beds
or fix the hose to lift the wilting heads,
and spread the mulch and tidy up the rest?
Tie up your boots and pull on hat and glove.
The garden call you; it requires love.
What is left of thine,
Where more than a debris shall dine,
Who’d seen thy grandeur as well,
If one of one and forty can tell,
Wherein grapes were schooled to give its best,
Of elegance alone dazzled by men of crest.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
What more can thou tell?
If thou art left standing,
Thy walls then do thy biding,
Of unsung fire hath thou now drunk,
One untamed hath thou sunk.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
Thy vineyard if thine alone fell,
Thy vineyard weary of ardor,
Stripped of her youthful splendor,
Ravished by Nature’s course,
That embarked with no remorse.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
If thou canst still tell,
Where hath thy tasters gone?
Where hath thy lurchers gone?
On a hope they now do dwell,
To see thy graceful state once again swell.
What is left of thine,
Where more than a debris shall dine,
Who’d seen thy grandeur as well,
If one of one and forty can tell,
Wherein grapes were schooled to give its best,
Of elegance alone dazzled by men of crest.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
What more can thou tell?
If thou art left standing,
Thy walls then do thy biding,
Of unsung fire hath thou now drunk,
One untamed hath thou sunk.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
Thy vineyard of thine alone fell,
Thy vineyard weary of ardor,
Stripped of her youthful splendor,
Ravished by Nature’s course,
That embarked with no remorse.
Oh thou Château Boswell!
If thou canst still tell,
Where hath thy tasters gone?
Where hath thy lurchers gone?
On a hope they now do dwell,
To see thy graceful state once again swell.
Survival
The souvenirs of my past lay scattered on the floor
Where plays a melody by a dead musician
I search across the length of my room
The reasons for me to go on
I find gushing rivers and setting suns
Falling stars and silent wishes
Spread like a fabric made of wool
Drape them across my shoulders
And now suddenly I am the nature sprinkling fairy dust of survival everywhere I go
I find death carrying the skeletons falling out of closets
Impregnated with my lover’s dire request to show mercy upon me
But all I see is a smiling widow
Dancing to the twirls of her red Saree
Death like any loner
Secretly wishes for life to accept it
But here am I
Standing on the edge of my artificial being
Gasping for the breaths of relief
Only to find myself singing to the tunes of kun faya kun
I whisper the name of fancy sounding Gods
And travel to the end of my darkness
Waiting to be released
Like water of a flooded dam
How do you survive in situations like these
Where mourners pray for your grief
And then slowly let you go
Like a silk thread falling from your hand
How do you let your world shatter into million pieces of expensive freedom
Under the influence of which you fly high
Claiming to taste the grey looking clouds
How do you eat sand in the end
And remember to chant the name of Allah
As your casket is lowered slowly in the ground
Amidst the violent cries of your grieving mother
I have no answers
I have no faith
I have no questions to frame anymore
But a wish
Falling like a coin in a wishing well
That when I live
I live like a thread lovers tie to the sacred banyan tree
I live like hymns of the temples
And ringing of the bells
Reverberating slowly to form a composition of universe
I live like a wish coming true; impending death of star
revival of one
As the entire sky fills up with
Memoirs of past
Twinkling
Shedding light to the darkest corners of being
And I, standing naked; wrapped in space
Annihilate
Forever
Like Shattering of my room’s window
To let the light fall
Far far away from home
On a tourist’s camp; a penumbra of my presence
Summer falls from above,
Blanket for the blesséd.
Falling soft and velvet
Like a forgotten glove.
My sorrowful gaze clings
To the wounded garnet
Of the blaze incarnate
Red rose’s broken wings.
Burns in burnt shades of brown
Seep through bricks; painful death
Blooms through windows, like breath
Rises up, falls back down.
Nothing left to defend
Anymore. This is fine.
The air must smell of wine
In the hot, scarlet end.
Heavy sandbags of silence sat on my eyelids
slide to my lashes and force my eyes closed
in the closed eye of the brimstone storm
I found myself meagerly watching.
With a touch like water, fluid fingers feel
the stone part beneath pristine sullen skies,
burns blooming like a warm hug,
showing on the skin of the still-standing.
Boswell’s Plea
I may be charred,
But yet I stand;
To fight another day,
In this desolate land;
I dream of better times,
When the glasses overflowed,
When the bushes were clothed, with the finest rose;
But times have changed and that is a fact,
The vineyards are empty,
No one to attract,
The climate is changing,
Yet, you do nothing,
So, I will stand proudly,
In my bitter disgrace,
As a symbol, that you must take action now,
To save the human race.
The vintner walks a lonely path
With nothing but to mourn
For who collects these grapes of wrath
Left singed with sour scorn?
The trellis bare of sweetened fruit
Still stands upon the slope
The irony is absolute
And offers little hope
But even though these days of woe
Do haunt the stone and field
This quaint and dreamy wine chateau
Will have another yield
A rose to all who suffer loss
By fire’s thorny bane
A toast to those who bear their cross
And vow to build again
Forgotten Worship
And on that day
Dionysus watched his worship burn
From purple-red to ashen grey
As castle bricks spat and churned
And to Hade’s halls, the vines returned
Taking a barrelful of prayer
And glasses of Sauterne
Years, a vine had served a castle
offered vintage, made it prosper
Beaut’s a rose, a lovers’ blossom
Years, the kingdom’s yield were wholesome
But, there came a new invading
fiery vine. It clambered, breaking
in the palace, barrels shattered,
windows fell, the villain chortled
spilled and drank them all the wines
Ruins dunned by smoke and cinders
Sadly these are bitter times
not as that of winey bitters
but of falling ashes, charred
the title is “a tale of vines”
Crimson Hope
Drenched in the haze of a withering blaze
Façade of a legacy still remains
Trees weep, roots bleed as the valley bellows
But wine scented halls would return once more…
Hope still remains, breathing through bruised and charred lips
Crimson blossom spared by a monstrous blaze
Just as a rose blooms in the dessert
A glint of hope amidst a singed maze
Spirit of hope continues to linger
Walking through walls tormented and withered
It glows crimson amidst smouldering ashes
Gathering vigour with each dying ember
Walls, left defenceless, yet, on solid grounds
Speak of a legacy from days bygone
Burnt and ravaged yet never forgotten
Time will return the glory that once was
Glass fire
A glass of sauvignon- rich, velvet, red
poured from a bottle – green, smooth made of glass
fired in the heat that fuses grains of sand
to liquid fire and sunlight, blown to shape
and fixed in moulds, house style, to hold the wine.
That same creative fire that forms the glass
wreaks havoc in the hills and fields below
pouring like a destructive libation
into the valley from the Glass Mountain
to Chateau Boswell’s waiting tiers of vines
grapes dried to raisin death on blackened stems
blushing roses withering as they bloomed
and Boswell’s walls left standing, smouldering
reducing it to castellate estate
THE STINGING OMEN.
It stands ripped and desecrated.
Like the ruins of Babylon long forgotten.
It’s elegance even in a glance cannot be sighted.
The worse like the plague swept in unguided.
Chateau were is your grandeur?
For many years our taste buds you had given succour.
We reveled in wild ecstasy; in some otherworldly fantasy.
In orgasmic pleasures, the juices from your grapes drove down our bellies like a chaffeur.
We wish your sorry state was a mere nightmare.
The bitter reality opens up.
Chateau standing like an over-roasted corn.
The hollow space above licking it’s wounds.
The iron door like a prison’s gate locked tight.
The lilies before it looking wearied and soiled.
Like a graveyard, Chateau bleeds with defeaning silence.
The valley death it is and so none would ever tread.
The Photo’s Chosen Rose
Fire and ash, of course–
destruction in the news!
Such power in the force
that damaged all the booze.
And yet, the sun still tends
the bloom apparent there–
no smoke-obstructed lens;
no gray or ashen air.
Nature vents its spleen;
engravings stay the same–
Like Hardy’s drummer teen*,
the place still has a name.
*Reference to the subject of “Drummer Hodge”, the first version of which was written in 1899 by Thomas Hardy; not me.
Shades of Red
A Tanaga by Ryan Watch
Red’s a color most divine.
Sanguine is the hue of wine.
A mass of carmine berries
Pairs well with cerise cherries.
Pink and damask juxtapose
Beside the rufescent rose.
Looming sunsets paint the skies
With deep vermilion dyes.
Now all is splashed in a blood-red
As the flaming fires spread.
Rufous embers scatter dust
And we’re left with nought but rust.
Although no blood has been shed,
We see the walls smeared with red.
‘Tis a lasting scarlet stain
Of burning tinges and pain.
Phoenix
O’ lad,
look at me thoroughly
What do you see?
A ruined building or a devastated land
A hell’s touch or something so bland?
You see I can lament for years…
My beauty is lost, my garden is burnt
My glorious days, I yearn them so much
But time doesn’t flow backwards
So I can only look forward
Towards a healing path of future
My roses are dying but will soon bloom
My tears may taste salty now
But will shortly taste fine wine
The day will come and
I will sing merrily again
Rather than counting my breaths to die
The spirit of phoenix lies within and I meant to rise.
Flamma
A Rhupunt by Ryan Watch
A raging fire
Brimming with ire
Why set this pyre
On the Château?
Witness the clash
Of smoke and ash.
Behold the flash
Of flames aglow.
A lone rose dies;
There are no cries.
Under red skies
Burns the Château
Nothing remains
But barren plains.
Yet from such pains,
New life will grow.
“Runaway”
When I turned thirteen I wore my latch-key as an anklet
Because my twin flame would know me by my gait and flat mildewed feet
The nights my parents worked late and left me home alone I wandered beyond the river bank
To hijack its Ruin
A Gothic Hammock for my
Sleepwalking soul
This is where he parked his caravan
A battered VW the shade of mummy bandage
He unlatched my latch-key
And invited me to that
Subterranean winery
Look for eyes that glow like sea glass, hair as soft as Moss
I am the Crone-gargoyle of patina dreams—
Acid-washed and bronzed
Not unlike Lady Liberty.
A Stornello to Aromas
By Ryan Watch
The bouquet of wine, the sweet attar of blooms
Commixed with ripe and fermented grape perfumes – Are smothered by the stifling flames and its fumes.
“A Door Is Not a Door”
A door is not a door, it is a threshold
Infinite sand blown through memory
Reminding us part of lost glory
And the endless dreams we still behold.
A wall is not a wall, it is my holding
Against which evil is kept at bay
Before me safety and warmth lay
With the roof so gently above me folding.
A fort is not a fort, it is my heart
The keepsake of all which is sacred
The guardian burdened with hatred
A DOOR IS NOT A DOOR
A door is not a door, it is a threshold
Infinite sand blown through memory
Reminding us part of lost glory
And the endless dreams we still behold.
A wall is not a wall, it is my holding
Against which evil is kept at bay
Before me safety and warmth lay
With the roof so gently above me folding.
A fort is not a fort, it is my heart
The keepsake of all which is sacred
The guardian burdened with hatred
*** Sorry last line was lost, here it goes again
A DOOR IS NOT A DOOR
A door is not a door, it is a threshold
Infinite sand blown through memory
Reminding us part of lost glory
And the endless dreams we still behold.
A wall is not a wall, it is my holding
Against which evil is kept at bay
Before me safety and warmth lay
With the roof so gently above me folding.
A fort is not a fort, it is my heart
The keepsake of all which is sacred
The guardian burdened with hatred
What binds me and tears me apart.
A News Article Dedicated to Château Boswell Winery
The famed 41-year old Château Boswell Winery has been destroyed during the Glass Fire on September 27, 2020. Established in 1979, it was known as one of the minority of private owned wineries in Napa Valley. It served as winery, vinyard, and tasting room that provided both tourists and locals alike a savory experience. However, due to the recent Glass Fires in September, the wintery, along with the Black Rock Inn was among the buildings that perished in the flames. Though only parts of the winery still remain, the damage done by the fires serves as a lasting scar for this once lauded place.
The following poem has been written in the Château’s honor:
On its charred remains,
I can still smell the bouquet
Of sweet-smelling wines.
The poetic form I’ve used is the Japanese haibun, which is a combination of both prose and poetry.
The Unburnt Rose
A roar as soft and gentle as a rose
Arose amidst the fire’s growing height
As redwood, maple, willow bent in throes
The night sky bled in fury at the sight.
Those twisting flames, from twisted branches raged
Unleashing spite and anger on the vines
The chateau now (where all but stone is razed)
formented in the scent of boiling wine.
But in the ashen morning, ashen skies
refuse to weep their comfort on the hill
A rose — unburnt, unburnished — never dies
The airless valley: silent, acrid, still.
Though tears of grief and wine of joy are spilt
The unburnt rose will still refuse to wilt.
CHATEAU BOSWELL’S HOPE
Flowing it flared flawless
Blazing sparks all men saw
Shredding peaceful grape vines
California’s bad time
Fine grape blackened by red
Gave hands no field to tend
Gave hands no juice to squeeze
Gave hands no skin to feel
Gave tongues no wine to taste
Now look beyond the blaze!
Restore Napa Valley!
Environment needs it
Hope beams its rays at times
This land will rise like tides
A Relic of 2020
I stopped to smell the roses in
This double-twenty year
When men thought Mars and flying cars
Would finally be near
But since I found no blossoms nigh
I wandered off to search
(And though I scrutinized the skies
No hoverboards emerged)
At length I caught a spot of red
Like blood or new-poured wine
As I drew near, the sight grew queer
Then dismal in design
A single rose with head bowed low
Abandoned on its stem
As if a plague of flow’ry ague
Had seized the rest of them
Or maybe some strange insects like
A murder hornet swarm
Attacked the blooms and sealed their dooms
In angry protest storms
My fanciful conjectures were
Arrested by a scent
And then I took a closer look
At petals black and bent
I stopped to smell the roses in
The twenty-twenty gloom
But smoke and spark have made their mark
And masked the bud’s perfume
Florid Frame
Did a tremor travel your florid frame
When you saw the headlands glow?
Did you disown your botanical name
To uproot your feet and go?
Did smoke soon stifle your stomata small,
As you wept for your neighbors?
Did your sight dim from the noxious pall,
No use come from thorned sabers?
Did you bat a leaf like a flimsy flue
To aid the burning staked throng?
Did the wilted canopies spot you, too,
And vainly stretch tendrils long?
Did grapes burst into a rolling boil,
Watering earth with nectar?
Did bottles follow suit, drenching soil
Like a pelican specter?
Did the given juice and wine wind a stream
Along their reach to your base?
Did you gulp and gasp, your bud with red gleam
Preserved in a ruined place?
Did you make the escape a fixed pilgrim
Above consecrated ground?
Did stemware fill again with a singed rim,
A glass laden, still, and round?
‘A whole nother world’ by Beate Haddad
There are thousands of truths contained in this vine-yard-castle:
Behind the iron door is drawing a cardiac muscle.
Leaning against it, hearing its beatings-
feeling its pulsative heartbeats- cheatings.
‘Let me in’, whining and knocking emphatically.
When I first heard the noise of the hidden heart
I felt that my own one was flying enthusiastically
towards the other trembling hidden heart.
Longing for chaste embraces to the unseen booming bust
Keeping on repeating the hammering knocks against ice crust.
Heart melting possessor of this secure stronghold whinstone,
begging you bitterly, menacing this near threshold t- bone.
Every single blow of my fists united in the beats
simultaneously of the cold fancy vault unseen heats.
Pleading you stranger, come reigning in midst of my heart;
I want to kiss you with the kiss of your love alert.
As you are drawn by your own love, I may force you open sweet dove.
As I fuse my hammerings of fists in yours of heartbeats,
I’m not sure if my mind myself reluctantly cheats:
The iron door is opened widely up, an immense void, all of light
comes before my bedazzled giddily astonished sight.
In this immense void none can find the extents of the hearts’ height,
Or its depth or its boundaries on the right or the left, or those on the back or the front.
In the midst of this immensity, in a highest point, I see
The most chaste, purest love is waiting for me!
Chateau Boswell After the Glass Fire
A singed red rose, a deformed door,
both stand before a sky of haze—
If all burns, what’s a rose for?
The crunch of ash is under feet
and tells the story of the blaze:
the singed red rose, and deformed door.
Lovely tinctures were set discreet
for divining: wines in display—
If all burns, what’s to sow for?
I walk the grounds: a game of seek
all I find is soot and malaise,
a singed red rose, and deformed door.
How the ramparts vaulted, brimmed, peaked
with bustle, now in refuse traced—
If all burns, what’s to grow for?
Barrels broke open in last weak
gasp, wine untasted, gone, erased;
a singed red rose, a deformed door—
If all burns, what’s a rose for?
Title: Even Roses Know
Not even roses have their day.
Next to musk of gargoyles
tranquiling the air
of sodden fallen romanesque castles
valued obscolescent
by renaissance grandiloquent snobs.
Looking to pay a buck
for ingenius wit
that cometh out their mouths.
Their sole humility act
to placate, not test the gods
and keep the charismatic graces
endearing them to the Jasmines of the high courts.
And the Pocahontas of foreign Ministry lands.
No, sir.
They do not ingratiate themselves
with abandon
until they’ve paid homage
to the stone.
That which builds their life.
The bud that allows them to grow.
And wine with the best
like in the bygone height of Aux-la-Chappelle.
Cause even Charlegmane knew the limits of the best,
and the ashes that decored the empire of his roman antecedents.
Nice ruins.
Ashen and fertile soil
for the next power (papels)
on the throne.
Greatness rebuilds.
But even Roses
know petals
receive red flavenoids deluxe
for function and not for them.
Not vanity. Not for nothing.
But even this must happen
for self-realizing.
For to like oneself is to use it.
At the end of your day,
for pedalling autumn
And succombing seasons
into the fold
of the present day
Ballad of the Deflowered Rose
By Maurice DeLivre
O winsome Rose of deepest red,
Hallowed be thy pure name!
Virtue has made you most demure
And shielded you from blame.
Erubescent shades flush thy cheeks
In their velvet softness.
A scarlet hue paints thy full lips
Which speaks with politeness.
Clothed in robes of modesty
And decked with jewels of grace;
A wholesome creature most divine,
Worthy of mankind’s praise.
Thy charm and thy unfettered soul –
Both enthralled and awed me.
For who among the flowers could
Match with thy purity?
Within thy loftiest Château
That overlooks a vale,
Thy presence stole the hearts of all
The valley’s every male.
And there they came, from near and far
To ask thee for thy hand.
Yet chaste as thou were, ye refused
To accept their demands.
Disappointed and crestfallen,
Thy suitors went away.
And thus ye remained unsullied
For yet another day.
But there was one whose lust consumed
His heart in hellish flames.
So great was his desire for thee –
To him, ye were the flames.
When honeyed words failed to take hold,
He forced himself on thee.
Ye defended thyself but lost
Thy guarded purity.
The robes of modesty were rent.
Thy virtue turns to vice.
Innocence shuns her gaze in shame
And doesn’t hear thy cries.
Why give yourself to lechery?
And shy from what is just?
Consumed! Consumed were thee by flames!
Fires ignited by lust.
And when he’s had his way with thee,
He leaves thee with nothing.
Robbed, depraved of thy erstwhile joy,
Thou art a sorry thing.
Now, I behold thy present form
And pity thy poor state.
Thy maiden gaze that once was meek
Is blazing now with hate.
O winsome Rose of deepest red!
Tainted by sin and blame,
Thy vestal vow is disobeyed!
Branded by sensual flame.
Much more lies, beyond that door.
We see the chars and sob, alas
the greyish tones of sorrow,
such weeping words we speak of, yet,
a pinch of hope, we borrow.
But what once happened, here, within,
what joy, what love, what laughter?
For it’s not what it is now, we should dwell upon
But on what will come hereafter.
Notice how the rose is bold,
she says, ‘Hey! I’m still here,’
hanging on with a lust for life,
not giving in to fear.
She soon will bloom and spread her seed
and create a garden, bejewelled.
The grass will grow, the trees will leaf with love
and with life they will be fuelled.
The stone is strong and stands aloof
bound firmly by its mortar,
remembering how It once kept safe
a Mom,
a son,
a daughter.
The stubborn door that guards the way
could tell a thousand tales,
of passing guests and words exchanged
that brought happiness and smiles.
So, look again, don’t feel despair
or let sadness cloud your awe.
For life is itching to begin again, it seems
so much more,
lies beyond that door.