Black Roses I Remember

I remember
Roses are black though others are of a color
Definite in stripe and glow
Roses, wild roses of no color save the dark innards of
meaningless thought
Of alleys smoky in air-vented stream
-- glorifying mist but emptiness of color
-- rising to forever but clouding the words instructions directions
Digression in another media of stilled figures
Dark memories I gather
With roses gone
Weeds

Red roses
Red roses of borrowed time and memory
Of borrowed being
Dying to wind-blown rained-out gutted fiery dust
Red roses black roses

Chinese tea I serve in memoriam dilute slowly picture-frames passing one by one
Ominously tortuously slow
Petals floating on visage screen skin of brown-dark tanned tea
In fragile porcelain of untarnished white of white
Bone
Hard as I had always known
Hard words
Hard
Hard annealed iron floating butterfly

Taunting teasing daring forgetfulness
Though remembrance remains as roses stand on vases green poised on every visible
corner of the round-eye world

Of roses black roses
Now only these
I remember

--andoy 1/June/1986





Black Roses I Remember