Oh cunning charisma
Oh gardenia pale and bright
Fragile, weeping in the lonely moonlight
A wicked whiff of saccharine in the coldest night
At my breath, breathing breaths wet and dry
Blinding to my darkened eye

Spinning are your yielding petals
Screaming are your taciturn leaves
Outstretched, grappling against a breeze
Inflamed in a hot white fire
As a dancer losing rhythm in torrent wind
Coyly bending, stem over stem to aspire

On a miserly draft, cloaked in exotic sheath
Dangling on Death’s wire
On two weightless feet
In my desiring, half wakened dream
Silent and serene, you gracefully careen
Singing dulcet in my weary mind, you blanched devil
Calloused by stinging rain, twice disheveled

I spare a few heart strings for you
A basket of sentiments, though slight as dew
For a trite love sits on those torpid petals
Yet beneath that layer of anguish that nettles
Lies
A lake of wanton love
In quiet repose, full and true
In those heavy tears which bulge as dew

A circle of sallow
A divine light in the eve, though wilting at break
Your blossom is pure, make no mistake
Delicate like a note played by harp
Winter’s melancholy song sung sharp


One blossom, cold as ice
A phantom in its colorless fright
Your whisper wisps off into shadows
A mane glows against blackest hallows

What sin is charisma
The gardenia that calls
With passion deceiving
It trickily crawls

I shall pluck you from your dirty garden!
Water you, set you atop my table
Watch you grow in my heart’s longing cradle
One voice, one blossom full and bright
Fading graceful in my hungry light

In desolation, a beauty of fairest flesh
Kind to lips, unkind to breast
Weak and subservient to eyes that gawk
Watch the leaves grow sour, the flower taut

And petal after petal shall fall
Dropping to these palms without flaw
Your feet do not graze the table anymore
They graze the tapestry of my memory
Which maimed, floats on the floor

Wicked, oh wicked white devil
Oh welting with your watering charisma
Whipping and wafting with wooing scent
A kind and gentle mannerly gent
What brings your pain such a foul tongue
Spinning me round like a shawl undone
You impervious thing, you blanched devil
You phallic siren with a head of thistle

Gardenia bright, mellifluous light
Peace be with thee
You will die tonight
As I squeeze your stem and cut it with my heart
Cut it away, quick and hard