Orchid redux

In an earlier post, I published a version of this poem , Orchid. It appeared however in a counter intuitive format which required that the reader scroll to the bottom of the text and read his way up to the end of the poem thus offending nearly all normal reading instincts (at least for readers of English) and frustrating even the most sympathetic readers. Here's a slightly revised version in the customary format. I've also a link to an audio recording of yours truly reading the poem. 

Orchid by Kevin Cahill

the beginning,

early it comes,

a slender stem,

an upturned brush

dipped in harlequin hues,

demurely rapt in plasm,

at length,

an orgasm of spreading petals,

lavish, gaudy, yet graceful,

a long ravishing run to the end,

in full season,

laden, lilting, lovely,

beyond any reason,

then at length,

the slow, garish curtain,

unseamed, unstemmed, undressed,

and depressed underground by callous hands,

a dark brown bulbous sun,

razed and set,

buried just deep enough

in the credulous earth,

less living now,

inert, hardcased,

more death like now,

then tendrils demented by dark,

interred in dirt, innately infested and inseminated

inside the underground,

out they come barely born,

beetling the air,

their dyes all cast,

a fancy in waiting,

just so,

a perfect vanity,

up – wordless,

pitched perfectly,

tuned by time absolute –

and all for nothing,

only this,

the coming out,

out pour all things,

all things uproot,

they leave to stem no tide,

neither sun nor moon,

rather husband the earth below,

a little moment shouldering an infinite empire,

bowed head, crowned and cracking,

now and forever out of time,

always coming,

always dying,

always too early

it comes,

the end.

4/01/2012