Within This Flower Lies My Love
Within this flower lies my love.
My loneliness its thorns,
The shy petals of it my hope against hope-
Its blue colour that of things impossible,
Its fragrance a drug born from a need,
A necessity of a body in pain.
A perversion of man upon Nature
Mirroring the crime I am about to commit
The ancient crime of Man upon Woman-
Oh, I know this.
I have no excuse-
Only this ugly, sticky, dark and black need
The blood poisoned,
The heart pierced by betrayal upon rejection upon humiliation
Upon need,
Upon need,
Upon need.
Within this flower lies my love.
Within its perfume the last breath
Of that which in me is good
Reaching out for the last time-
If not now, then never
Shall I turn back from the road to Hell.
Oh, I am in Hell-
Within that flower lies my love,
Its dew my prayerful tears
That Love should turn her face to me
And make into a good man this wretch.
I once was a husband, father, lover,
To man, woman a friend
Until a tyrant’s rage turned it all to dust,
A desert of bitterness.
Yet-
Long after I became tyrant in that tyrant’s stead
Yet-
Long after the laughter of women died from my chambers
Yet-
Long after the little hands that once brought me apples were put into the ground-
In this sand and wind and heat
This rose still stands
A rose blue, and therefore, a mirage
Waiting patiently for its dream-companion:
The mirage of the nightingale
That would sing even for me.
Within this flower lies my love
And I have placed it in my lady’s path
Offering her the sweetest of ecstasies:
Oh, I had forgotten what it was like to be tender and sweet
So its sweetness I approximated from old grimoires,
Artificed it from the breath of djinn
Tore open old wounds within my heart
As I forced myself to remember
The whirling, heady thrill
Of Love’s first dizzying kiss.
These I dropped between its petals-
My heart’s blood
Just as the nightingale sacrifices his
Pressing his heart into the rose’s thorn.
So, you see, my beloved, sweet:
Within this flower lies my love
Within this flower lies my life
Within this flower lies my past and my future
My heart and soul, all yours to keep.
It is not a good man
Who so stands here in the shadows a coward,
I know this;
It is not a kind soul that brought you here.
But upon my life,
I swear-
But one touch from you
Would make this poisoned well
Again a wellspring clean;
But one sweet word from you
Would make this desert
Again a flowering meadow;
But one kiss from your lips
Would unblacken this heart
And let it know love once more.
So, there you have it-
I have nothing more to say
Now that you know all this:
Within this flower lies my love,
Within it my hopes and dreams;
They said we would love or that one of us would die
Well, then, my sweet Yassamin-
Make it swift at least.