Flowers Like You
Pale, porcelain, perfect
words that are all too fitting for the
snowy white lily flower
who blooms in her glass prison.
Shielded from bitter winds, she stands
alone.
Flowers like you make me want to break that glass.
to smash your cage
and paint you red.
Carrie;
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed reading your Poem today. I thought that the way that you used
the glass container as a metaphor for a Prison was very clever. I found the last Stanza to
be very Powerful. "Flowers like you make me want to break that glass. to smash your cage and paint you red". I cannot wait to read more.
The alliteration of "pale, porcelain, perfect" is great. It feels so calm but then contrasts so powerfully with the emotion in "to smash your cage and paint your red."
ReplyDeleteIt’s almost as if it was written by a flower itself
ReplyDeleteWhoa! I love how you play with contrasts. The poem starts off delicately--"porcelain" that "blooms"--but then shakes the reader with the violence of being imprisoned. Similarly, the second stanza makes you think that being protected from "bitter winds" is a good thing, but then reminds you that she's alone nonetheless, and makes you question whether safety is really worth isolation.
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza is my favorite. It mirrors the first one because it makes you think it's going to be purely about the delicate beauty of the flower, but then introduces breaking glass and "smashing." It made me think about the line between love and possessiveness. Starting with the image of whiteness and ending with red is striking.
It's trippy how the poem makes us root for the flower's escape from glass, but then we realize with horror that the alternative is just as bad, if not worse. There's no good option for the flower, either being trapped in glass or trapped at the mercy of the speaker. Something about the first stanza feels voyeuristic. I feel like the end makes me complicit in the violence.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the flower itself that has a voice--so is she even unhappy, or is it just the speaker projecting? On the other hand, the strong feelings of the last stanza suggest to me that maybe the speaker identifies with the flower. So many possible interpretations!