The Girl and the Overgrown Garden

An allegorical poem

A girl discovered a garden one day

up where the woods claim the hill;

tumbledown, overgrown, settled to waste

by brambles surmounting it walls.

Its beds were now nettles, their boundaries dissolved,

the grass was awash with burdock

and high as her hips. The gate had no bolt,

lay transfixed and jarred just a crack.

 

The girl slipped on in like a key through a lock

and buried herself in the lawn,

flattened the grass with the large of her back

and pretended the yard was her home.

She thrashed up the briar after snapping a switch

and wheeling beheaded the clocks;

she felt no compunction for wildlife which

to her mind was born of chaos.

 

In the heart of the garden there grew through the brake

the last remnant hydrangea bloom.

She smiled, picked and pinned the bouquet to her frock,

slipped out through the gate and was gone.

 

The flow of my wilderness is scattered by shreds,

my soul and my sanctum are rent,

the last of my flowers have died on your breast

but the thorns grow back with a vengeance.

Author's Note

Someone asked me to post some of the miserable stuff I wrote during a break-up about 4 years ago. Here it is then. Enjoy the happy message :)

Reviews

[kingblaq]

You want me to be brutally honest with you?
I FEEL YOU!!

some lil girl just plcked the sole flower bud in my weed-ridden garden a few months ago, n it's made me grow a wall of thorns n poison ivy around my newly blooming garden...it seemed the macho thing to do.

I love the feeling you painted, the way you painted it- your metaphors n word choices. I'm envious of your talents (jealous, more like)

WRITE ON, mate! (from the review chain)

[Mockingbird]

sounds like she was the luckiest girl in the world and a foolish one to squander it all and let it go. great allegory. nice imagery. you have a great knowledge in foliage.

[Daniel Eaves]

Thanks, I had no idea that this poem made me sound like a great boyfriend!
Actually, I'm not entirely happy with the completely passive imagery of myself: allegories tend to have that effect where they leave an extra message that you weren't expecting.

[joshua deathdealer]

I love the metaphors here. The garden being trampled and trodden down still weighs heavy in my mind. The thorns do grow back, don't they. Well done sir.

[Mohammed J A Shah]

I can feel your pain shrieking out from these verses Khan! Every verse twists a new thorn into my side. I have also recently been through some of the turbulent rides that all relationships provide for us. If I was that girl, (WHICH I ASSURE YOU I AM NOT ;) ) I would have serious second thoughts about my actions.

[Daniel Eaves]

I'm sorry about your relationship troubles Mohammed - they come to us all!
As for this relationship, I'm afraid she was just a young girl whose world view didn't match with old, overgrown gardens such as myself. I'm not sure there was any helping what happened, or the way it did. We live and learn.

[needletail]

This poem is a masterpiece! It is very descriptive and sticks to a main idea. The only thing is you have a convention error. For instance, here:
A girl discovered a garden one day

up where the woods claim the hill,

tumbledown, overgrown, settled to waste

by brambles surmounting it walls. It confuses me why there is a comma, then no comma at the end of the lines, there seems to be no pattern with the commas. If I'm wrong here correct me, but you might want to fix that. :)

[Daniel Eaves]

Hi needletail, thanks for your kind review :) It's very nice to be appreciated.
The commas are placed under the convention of prose - that is if you read it as prose and forget the line breaks the commas all make sense.
I hope that clears things up for you a bit!

[Daniel Eaves]

Although now I have noticed there are some capital letter discrepancies. That could do with being edited.

[Sami Khalil]

"my soul and my sanctum are rent,

the last of my flowers have died on your breast

but the thorns grow back with a vengeance."
A very powerful poem. Those last lines gave the knock-out punches...Splendid...:)

[Daniel Eaves]

Thanks Sami, you're very kind, as always.

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...:)