The Flower

A couple of hundred million years of angiosperms
and yet now all flowers grow in man’s killing fields.
Spilled blood, hatred, crude, by the barrel,
barren plains, sorry corners of meadows
where colourful buds weep
as they seep the nutrients of human detritus.
Bodies decay, as nothing, a spillage, a debt yet to pay.
It’s okay, apart from all the lives they touched they leave behind,
they didn’t have a family. Just another casualty.
Still the flowers, fragrant, grow.

Stimulated stamens, stigma sated,
pollinated, procreated – purpose complete, you mated.
Withered and bearing fruit or seed,
duty done, survival maintained in its ruthless deed.
Yet the offspring grow in polluted beds,
heads filled with past regrets embedded,
shedded from their own parent’s mess,
and then regress, foetal, bleating,
you can’t compete at this meeting.
You’re a gymno not an angio,
you’re more practical not sequined.
Can’t find your place – No room to grow. Defeated.
Seems it’s a show, a popularity contest,
but style over substance
only leads to stylish substance abuse.

Beautiful green leaves
can’t fight with coloured petals
and nostalgic scent.