A Rose Unfurls (Arose Suite)

A Rose Unfurls has been published in All of Me Vol. IV, courtesy of Shadow Spark Publishing. Featured art is by Maren Klemp

Listen to A Rose Unfurls by Richard Charles Stevens (Arose Suite)

Listen to Arose by Thomas Newman (Dan Ross Remix)

As the rose unfurled
I discerned her piquant face
My lips uncurled
For something deep within her leaflets stirred
Each of my senses then swirled to confer
Feelings imbued with the fragrance of grace

In musing, amusing myself with the light now diffusing
As though to prepare for embrace
Infusing the dew accruing due from her petals
Perusing the grounds of all surrounding nettles
I found oubliette
Of barbed thorns silhouetted
Reached in to request that I nestle

Dancing like daggers these teeth regimented
Prepared the suggestion I could soon lament this
Presumably defended by the circumstantial blades
Of substantial weight applied by countless days of shattered gaze
Fractures traced each captured vein
Her lacquered nails encased
Felt a calm innate that culminated expectations great

Gnawing ache once felt displaced
Compelled by traits related to the swelling throng of faith too long sedated
Should pain obtain facilitation
I would brace each fated wave and take it

As further then, the rose unfurled
Felt unperturbed that I was standing naked
In the sun kissed shade of rosebud lips paraded
They parted to impart the whispered kiss of crystal tryst
Wherein two hearts submit to chance midst continental drift

As further still, the rose unfurled
I reached within and felt a pinch
Fell to knees
Knew well this bleed would need to be seen to indeed
One solitary teardrop all I wept
Within which endless centuries be kept
Dids’t fall to quench the flower bed beneath

She flashed sweet smile
Beguilingly her rose red teeth
Then bled for me
I fed from every leaf bequeathed
The wedded tears of destiny
Arose from fate disgraced of name
And nestled in her fragrant mane

Curved akin to waxing moon the smile upon my once glum face
Compelled by lips of twosome throng that tell of faith through sootheful song for way beyond the everlong embraced

My lips then uncurled
As the glistening hips of a rose in full blossom unfurled