Poetic Rose Palinode

“A rose is a rose is a rose.”
No, that’s all wrong—
XXXXXXXXXXit’s merely prose.

A rose is a song with oboes
And banjoes or toppled rows

Of dominoes, flocks of flamingoes
A doe’s nose that smartly glows,

A politico foe’s woes,
Or heroes deserving salvos,

Pekoes in potted tea bowls,
Mistletoes and lurid dildos.

But not to bore—I suppose
No rose is ever otiose.

What?  Rose is a rose is a rose*
Gertrude’s true phrase.

Indeed, this is poetry—
XXXXXXXXXXit really shows
and so worthy of literary halos.

 

XXXXXXXXXX*from the poem, Sacred Emily, by Gertrude Stein.  The first “rose” is a woman, the second “rose” is Stein’s  allusion to the English painter, Sir Francis Rose.

Published, In the Shadow of Sleeping Giant” anthology, Flying Horse Press, 2016.