Beware thistles

The dying thistles blow in the wind
Spreading next year’s crop
Of pain and beauty
Floating on the breeze.
Beautiful at a distance
They provide some
Sustenance for insects and birds,
Until on an urge to reproduce
They send out their
Seemingly innocent progeny,
On wings of fluffy parachutes
To colonise the world
In the same guise.
Then turning their shameless heads
Upwards, like little suns
Of self satisfaction
Too late they realise their
Mistake
And hang their heads
In death and repentance.

Such is misinformation
Difficult to stop
Attractive to look at
Apparently benevolent
But inflicting
Pain that pricks at our heels
And stabs our fingers.
And which misinformation,
Seeds itself in ways
That we cannot anticipate.

Beware thistles.

Poem and Photo Copyright to Englepip©

THE MOON CHILD

It hangs as a ball in an azure sky
Bobbing in an ocean of blue ether,
Buoyed on pink candy-floss clouds:
And as the sun sets on the darkening
Globe below, the all-seeing moon
Stares at the world which bore it,
And thinks that Mother Earth
Is burning like a sun, suffering
From the heat of its diurnal rival
And melting into barrenness
From the excesses of a deadly
Parasite: Man.
And if it could cry it would and
Drown the fires with tears of sorrow;
It would scream to eternity
Of life wasted and for its loss.
It would blow cooling breath
on the deserts and poles
And scratch out
The infestation,
Which is killing
Its mother.

Poem and photo copyright Englepip©

When I began to write this poem, I began to write about the beauty in the sky but my feelings about the raging fires in California; encroaching deserts and warming poles are so intense I began to personify the moon and feel its loss as though we are killing its mother.

A rose by any other name

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They call you dog rose,
But could anything
Be more sublime
Than your five pink petals
And your yellow filaments fine?

Derogatory term for beauty
Here hiding shyly
In the shade of early June.
Dappled light of early summer
But hedges soon to festoon.

They say you will cure
A mad dog’s bite
Your juices potent in the fight
But for me your beauty
Is the simple remedy
That helps heal a heart
Pierced by inconstant love’s dart.