"A Vision of Roses" is one of the first Postered Poetics projects created by Aberjhani. The shadowed image of roses is screened by a poem bearing the same title:


A VISION OF ROSES

Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist.
Pink dragonflies fall from the air
and become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks.
The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter.
Like the smile of a child separated
from his mother’s milk for the very first time.

But with my arms circling your breasts
and my lips at home upon your ears:
the universe opens one gate after another
and we step into gestures made of pure sanctity and grace.

Our first journey here we found only a road
made of ice and dust. Do you recall the breeze
that stripped us naked and twirled upon its
finger a single bright petal? I remember tumbling
like a silk feather through your heart
then dropping to my knees and staring up at the moon.

Staring up at the moon. I saw his silver mouth
slowly open. My heart clenched with terror
as a wide stream of blood suddenly gushed
beneath the stars and came spilling towards Earth.
Horror chewed our bones into wax as wave
after wave of brilliant crimson rushed down the sky
and we prepared to drown in a monsoon of blood.

How much time would there be: to scorn death and love you?
Would escape prove possible through your eyes or mine?

Whereas fear had made the night into a slave
suddenly it was liberated by a vision of bliss.
A rose blossom scorched my cheek with a whisper.
When we again looked into the sky, the crimson waves
we had taken for blood had moved closer
and we could see that they were not blood at all.

Flowing out of the moon’s mouth in the shape
of a long trailing spiral were countless red roses.
Roses as red as an evening sun or a mountain covered with rubies.
For every blossom that fell the earth would moan
and a nightingale spring singing from its grave
or a tiny blue star would shiver white ecstasy.

I dared to rise and hold you with hands
that were filled with somebody’s tears
as roses came whirling out of the jubilant dark
and carnelian starlight turned our very skin
into rising waves of soul-hot pleasure.
Each time our lips touched our lungs filled
with the scent of honey and eternal mystery.

All of Eden was reborn and forgiven
as we opened like mystical pathways
and fed the earth with nectar from our laughing hearts.
We were so sticky with joy that we lost our humanity.
That was the only moment I have ever prayed would last forever.
And that is the only moment which ever has.

Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist.


“A Vision of Roses: Blood and Blossoms”
by Aberjhani
from Collected Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black
© Feb 2009