The poem is paired with the painting by Shani Rhys James |
The lilies yawn like leopards
caged all day in the hot house.
Back late, we open the door
and an animal breath flows out,
filling the night-garden, bitter-sweet
with azalea and cat-breath of flowers.
Inside, paw-prints of pollens
the colour of blood, soft
blood-beads to stain the fingers,
a petal curled like a cat
on the scratched piano,
scent escaped like a gas.
I inhale it, dizzy, losing myself
in thickets of frond, fern, leaf,
stems and stamens of roses,
wall-paper flowers climbing the walls
of the yellow room, red room, blue room,
in a stink of nectar and damp.
They grow over the windows, the doors,
till I'm spellbound in the story
of a girl-woman tamed and trapped
in a tower in a wood in a thicket
of flowers, where something
is breathing, is purring, is prowling.
1 comment:
Thanks for this poem - I had not encountered it before, and so love that first line's striking image. Lilies will forever be enhanced by that.
Did you see the What Do Artists Do All Day programme about Shani Rhys James - fascinating.
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