Three themed poems by Gloria Wimberley

Three poems
by Gloria Wimberley
Theme: Roses

Calico Rose in a Skull-Vase

Hiding in the butter
yellow of the desert
he wants to slither
through striations
of sand
undetected / invisible
feel the heartbeat
of the sand quickening
and his own resolve thickening
Though by nightfall he'll wish to
be eating the lizard's gizzard
and his own heart out
for leaving her at the
train station
knowing she would all
but sink down, head like a rain-bent flower,
to the platform in despair
her long, obsidian-black tresses
cascading onto her tear-wet face
when she realized that he'd pushed her into
a golden quicksand of lies
brittle, broken promises
...and the vultures, stark, and dark,
glinting in the sun-squint
keep circling overhead
waiting patiently
for the melting man
to become carrion
so they can pick
his bones clean

********************

Tea Rose of a Gypsy

I've become
the husk of
my friend
--brittle, innerly brown, with bitterness
in my fibers...
At the blame game
she's an Olympian
but to be fair, her brain
has been addled since college:
a maelstrom of mouths
screaming and chanting
never recanting
their vitriol ever-repeating...
And Elizabeth the Tea Rose
can never escape
the hell of paranoid schizophrenia
and I can never escape the uneasy dichotomy of sensation:
cozy warmth
of our friendship
juxtaposed
with the uncomfortable suffocation
of our friendship
Now, after flailing around in the river of rage
and resentment
I've washed ashore
shivering
from the sun-mottled dark
depths of ambivalence
half-dead
yet half-alive
And I am
tea-stained linen
once crisp and clean with promise
Over the withering decades that she and I have shared
I, the Gypsy Rose
have faded and shriveled...
become the husk
of my friend

*********************

Cadence Rose, star-crossly

Shooting stars
up into her veins
lets her feel
the loosening
of the mortal
coil...
(Miss Match, ever-lit,
could never achieve
this kaleidoscope
of colors radiating
from within
--she just blunders on)
The airy gold that breezes
through the slight spaces,
the feather fingers that embrace
her soul~solid in this plane
let go with anvil coldness
when the stars
start to prick, pierce,and bleed her
of dignity
Then the only stars
she can see
are stuck in the muck
of the sky
as if tarred
and feathered
by angels

Author bio:

Originally from West Virginia, Gloria Wimberley is a poet-mother-wife who now lives in South Florida.Her work has appeared in New Zealand's Southern Ocean Review, Tapestry, The Northern Virginia Review, Moonshade Magazine and others. Recently, she read an original poem on the internet radio show The Empowered Mother based in Santa Barbara, California.