Below are five additional poems developed from last Thursdy’s The Butterfly”s Burden-inspired Twitter poetry party.
On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing 2
By @llbarkat, @mdgoodyear, @mxings, @SandraHeskaKing, @PoemsPrayers, @lorrie58, @LoveLifeLitGod, @gyoung9751, @memoriaarts, and @thegypsymama; edited by @gyoung9751.
A Rose Grows in an Ancient Wall
A rose grows in an ancient wall,
or maybe better surrounded by
21st century Snow Whites.
We can’t want for dwarves
plucking she loves me,
she loves me not
seven times seven.
Not one rose, not
one Snow White rose
plucks surety for me about
you.
There is life on the thorn if
you look close enough, thorn
pricked bleeding weeping seeing
she loves me he loves me not
seven times seven
or maybe the rose in its whiteness
loves me or maybe the night
or not asking he loves me,
he loves me not,
her garden will be bare,
a carpet of white.
Or stop walking, turn
around and around until
the world spins
seven times seven
and you
fall to one side, giddy, loopy,
sick,
shattered surety in the textured
fall as pink to gray to black.
I am sure, now, I know nothing
about roses; not one has lived.
You pluck truth from me
petal by petal
until I am left blushing
daisy bright cheeks
and not much else.
Pay my price; blush;
the roses/in the ancient walls
fear not exile.
What is ancient, but this cracked
concrete wall, stretching
with the seasons.
And then the wall laments a freedom not
known. Let’s go together, glide back,
lose ourselves in the wall of you and me.
Does This Music Love Me, Too?
And this music.
Does it love me too?
This harp, this fountain, this apple?
All are priests.
In the beginning, there was
a word and all these followed after,
flowing before me.
Or did you go to the back door
for the dogs, your whistle a quick
high pitch that draws them in?
A moment of recognition
before it flits away.
I, still calling names, am lost
in the wail of me and of thee.
Olive Shrubs, Olive Branches
Jasmine scented, our mail came,
the tendrils bound in blood,
wound tight round the post.
All blood is a Persian gift from God,
and olive shrubs and
brown postal boxes.
Let’s go as blood
brothers, to the olive shrubs;
let’s watch a tender night;
let’s be free
a lover and her poet.
What is loyal? What is free?
Poetry has no priest.
They have no we; we
have no they.
Nothing is ever free
for asking; everything has
a price enormously high.
You are loyal, you are free;
I see you in the olive shrubs,
calling yourself a poet.
No olive branch to
be found.
Find the olive branch
in me; pay my price.
It is light, almost free.
There is a price to your
blush and
I will pay it.
Old Wooden Words
Old wooden words sail on the sea,
still hoping for another moment
to glide back.
Kind is a word I have heard,
the only free word given away
without thought, before thinking,
released.
The only wrong words are no words
at all. Explain how separate is not
broken; I know, but tell me anyway,
kindly.
We are the opposite of Becket’s anxiety,
over flowing fools, two paths branching
and kindly drifting apart.
We speak of wrongs
together, break silence,
separate ourselves
into one love.
The Tryst of the Willow
Weave the willow into a tryst,
you the slender branch,
I the weeping leaves.
‘Tis said, “Speak the truth in love;”
sometimes to hear in love will do.
I hear in love the willow weeping;
I speak the truth of love to you.
A dangerous silence is shared
between us, waiting for water
and menus.
The willow says
smile, share almonds
instead of tears.
The weeping willow weeps for love,
for want of love, for love’s wants.
Love hews down the willow tree and
makes of it a fire.
What is more dangerous
asks the willow:
you, or poetry?
- Dana Gioia Defines the Enchantment in Poetry - June 12, 2025
- “I Am the Arrow”: Sarah Ruden Tells Sylvia Plath’s Story - June 10, 2025
- A Novel in Verse: “Eugene Nadelman” by Michael Weingard - June 5, 2025
Kathleen says
Pure succulence. I felt like a hummingbird with my beak down the throat of a flower sucking nectar. Poetry nectar. Berry juice. Honey. These will stick all day. 🙂
n. says
like slurping sweet
cool watermelon
on a hot day in July
Sandra Heska King says
I can’t wait until the next party!