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‘The Garden of Love’

 

‘The Garden of Love’ (after William Blake)

 

Some young punk

Tryin to be ‘hard’

Pussyole! with his mate

Said “no flowers!”

I was holding some wildflowers

To put in my vase at the apartment

I asked him “why not?”

He said nothing

That’s right keep walking bish!

To bloodclot!

I don’t walk around defensive

So I’m not quick to attack

I’d rather they think about it themselves

‘Without flowers there is no life’

He dreams

Try that on for size

‘You say “no!” to flowers

& you say “no!” to life’

Echoed on the wind

'You can’t eat money!'

Unity & Devision

He hears across the wires

'Not that way!...

... why have you forsaken us?'

He feels the ancestors

 

& again I am reminded of Blake’s ‘The Garden of Love’*

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

 

* The Garden of Love

By William Blake

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

 

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore. 

 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

 

Taken from:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45950/the-garden-of-love

 

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