Broken lives, meandering smiles
Idioms stitched in a haywire.
Times fail but the human trails,
Clear sky and an open mind.
A flower long forgotten.
An emperor of a crown or a troubled flower seller?
Hither and thither he shouts,
Sometimes crawling in a busy market space,
Sometimes borrowing from a dream.
Flowers or dreams?
What he sells?
A meal for an empty stomach at large,
A dying body at the dumping yard.
A broken leg, an empty stomach, and a watchful eye
Is all that’s there in his home.
It doesn’t speak of flowers or dreams.
It reeks of sustenance, an undue existence.
A forgetful society, harrowing times and powerful lords
That neither chimes nor rhymes.
Sunflowers, roses, marigolds?
What’s the flower that bears the strength of all? – they ask.
The strength to bury time as a foe
Or is it just a petunia that bore?
They demand and he supplies
But where’s his supply?
It’s buried in the hope of another time.
Still, the brokenness climbs, treads the busy lanes.
A flower forgotten in time.
