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there was a rustling in the
timbre
of the horticulturist's voice
a susurration somber
as a beetle's blighted progress
over darkened bark
when with a luxuriant flourish
a
twiggy growth's virgin roots
around his fingers snaked sluggish
sprouting from his gesticulations shoots
"behold the alchemilla vulgaris
a curse to
wound's red blush
obscuring the
vitex agnus-castus
cached
chastely behind that dank bush
& the
water-lily's bloodless bloom
aspiring to
light in purity
while
festering in impenetrable gloom
the
devil's-bit is rooted in obscurity"
when a wicker
of wormwood
uncoiled in
germinal slough
& subtly
slithered
with sinuous
innuendos from his mouth
the foliage
of my mind
embarking on efflorescent anathema
rustled in
riotous unrest
to the sway
of a tuber
distending
pendulously from his breast
"there grows
the cathartic wormseed
& here ripens
a goat's rue
one an
anemic bane to leeches' greed
the other of a darker hue
& just as the
bitter artemisia
mordantly
incarnates the soul's grief
so does the
rose emblem carnal ambrosia
flowering
fragrant betwixt thorny leaf"
"cursed is
the blade of the nettle
by all with
its razor touch caressed
while blessed
is the essence of thistle
a plethora
milked less kindly from mortal breast"
"the
bewitching floral architecture
of weeds
balefully blooming
is reason for
rapture"
he exalted
ecstatically burgeoning
& the
rustlings of my mind
were the
rhythms of insects breeding
under fallen
leaf & rotting mound
the
wrigglings of maggots feeding
decadently
upon fibrous ground
"drink in the
stains of the wild indigo"
said he
temporally adrift in seas of thyme
"we have
still to go where the satyrion grow"
stipulating
his need with secretions sublime
as flowering
around the grounds of creation
from the
hespirides to the garden of persephone
fluctuating
lushly in florid animation
he unfolded
the secrets of wild orchids to me
the fleshy
words of the horticulturist
grew
grotesque as vines sanguine
twisting in a
carnal tryst
as from his
mouth they fell entwined
to writhe
delirious upon his breast
where in
stigmatal passion orificed
their flowers
wreathed wounds crimson
& groping
tendrils my skin caressed
thirsting for
moist nourishment within
"feast not in
anguish upon the passiflora incarnata
flowering in
diabolical mockery from crown to root
nor drink in
the ecstacy of the vitus vinifera
from the
blissful intoxication hanging ripe in its fruit
for there
multiply things more malefic made
the foul
hemlock an unhallowed creation
& the black
berries of the deadly nightshade
fill a
fleshpot for worms in their distillation"
i fed
greedily on his petalled lore
a greenly
flourishing eucharist
once
deflowered blossoming no more
then i
devoured the horticulturist
for the
rustlings of my mind had grown
& strange
fruit hung ripe within its gloom
heavy with
temptation's seductive seed
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