Painting Strange Orchids from Metaphors for War
a) Hot Gates Falling
when you come to my door
bearing ten thousand tiny kisses
behind your smile's wide
& potent soft parade
my armies are easily conquered and my
words retreat
...into tired martial metaphors.
O the eyeblossom & heartbloom
I go through while my
insides swim w/ angelfish
& sway butterfly-shy
is difficult to describe
(but I had to try.)
°
b) Cool Orchids Unfolding
To try, too, is dying, is bright flowers
spitting up from ochre muck
where in earth or inken
indigo, white orchids opened
from wealth of dirt in the place
that gave your eyes their fragrant shade
between soilbrown & leafgreen
is the best i can do, improper
promptu, where what remains
is red, a tint spilt from what was
propulsive of muscle and blood.
A writer and sometimes discoverer of little things, Sean Moreland presently teaches American literature and popular culture courses at Nipissing University. His work has recently appeared as part of the collaborative poetry collection Dalhousie Blues, in the Malahat Review, Ottawa Arts Review, and Peter F. Yacht Club, and as part of the Summer of Love Visi:Cue-Cue exhibit at Canteen Gallery in Ottawa. In 2007, Sean Moreland won the Bywords John Newlove Poetry Award.