#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day19 #SiansYellowRoses #Florilegium

Sian's Yellow Roses

I. Energetics

Yellow rose, sun-aligned, a rising flare,
petals like a lion’s amber gaze.
Warming the solar plexus, seat of will.
Rosa foetida, born in the Caucasus foothills,
Persian Yellow, foremother of every golden bloom.
Named foetid by European botanists
who loved her colour,
but not her sharp, wild scent.

II. Language of flowers

In Victorian parlours,
bouquets spoke in code:
yellow for jealousy, for love grown thin, for warning.
Now the meaning softens:
it speaks of friendship, of joy,
of unfettered feeling
between those who choose each other freely.
Language sheds its skin; petals remain.

III. Rose as remedy

Rosehip and yellow petals cool heat-tired skin,
a gentle astringent for summer’s excess.
Solar herbs steady the heart,
lifting the soft fog Saturn leaves behind.
In the garden’s small apothecary,
the yellow rose stands, warm-handed,
a tincture of brightness,
a quiet gold that calls the spirit home.

#NaPoWriMo2025 #Day19 #TheBalladOfTontineStreet

The Ballad of Tontine Street

(Folkestone, May 25, 1917)

The queues were long on Tontine Street,
It was a market day.
No one looked twice at passing planes—
They often flew that way.

No warning came. No sirens wailed.
Just silence in the sun.
Then steel fell fast through cloudless sky—
By then, the deed was done.

The blast tore through the shopfront glass,
And blood ran with the rain.
The fire left bodies in the street—
And mothers called in vain.

Sixty-three lay dead that day,
Caught out in open air.
Ninety more were pulled alive—
Not all would heal from there.

They carried out the broken forms,
And laid them down in rows.
The numbers grew. The air went still.
Grief tighter than a noose.

There’s nothing left to see now there,
Just shops and paving stones.
But every May, the wind blows strange—
It doesn’t leave alone.

#NaPoWriMo2024 #Day19 #whathuntsme

 What hunts me?  

Politicians, who

scapegoat those marginalised

communities, now

they’re coming for disabled,

crusade on sicknote culture.

#napowrimo2022#day19 #donttrythisathome

"Don’t Try This At Home*

 

Don’t head butt showers,

it’s not smart, headaches begin,

you will feel like the

saddest girl in the world, start

striking dates from diary.

*still feeling a little meh so just a tiny Tanka.

#shakespereanrant #NaPoWriMo2021 #day19

Shakespearean rant

Oh thou withered kidneyed vile worm.

There is a crime against language,

a most misused and mangled utterance in our mother tongue.

To use in the modern parlance...

"Methinks"...

When I hear it all I can conceive is

that thou are an unmuzzled beer-witted incontinent harlot.

I dunno why it just really boils my piss.