Canvas Garden
Canvas Garden
by Sam Piccone
The flowers that are growing
inside come up through
the heavy tile.
Red and orange sherbert flowers,
smelling like wet
wooden spoons used to stir
ice cream soup.
They grow
on a crank, clinking
with inches that start soft
and grow louder like a steel
tire jack reaching it’s end
and collapsing in a tilt to the ground.
The petals drip
down the stem, seeds
of paint scabbing
the floor,
then evaporating to powdered
milk mounds of pollen.
I’m going to be gutsy and say that this poem helps define surrealist poetry.
Agreed C.L. I enjoyed every stanza although personally I try and stay away from image transitions with “like”. As in this stanza:
“They grow
on a crank, clinking
with inches that start soft
and grow louder like a steel
tire jack reaching it’s end
and collapsing in a tilt to the ground.”
It’s hard to remember to omit because it’s so easy to do and use. Though if you read many of the greats they very rarely use “like” to compare. I even enjoy “as though” better. There’s something smoother about it. This one isn’t so bad as we’ve got “crank, clinking, like jack, collapsing, tilt” that all seem to keep a relative sound pattern, but overall, it’s “like” that I like the least.
This poem is a very visceral example of authentic
thought, depth of imagination, original expression
and eloquent “word painting”.