Coming down to the final two weeks of last year’s The Guardian photograph of the day poems, I’m finding it harder to limit my offering to three poems. Two poems from this collection will draw upon that infamous weed that terrorizes the perfect lawns of the gated communities: the dandelion (as photographed in Turkey and Germany). Hopefully you will come to see this pesky plant in a new way. I’ll lead with the other poem that captures the absolute waste of a gourmet milkshake in New Castle, England. That it should come to this! I could say more, but I’ll let the photo and poem do the talking. (All poems by Vincent H. Anastasi)
Photograph: Scott Heppell/Reuters
Lactose Intolerance
Apparently our discontent has found a sweeter voice,
No vitriolic diatribes; there is a saner choice.
In protest hurl that frothy drink more coveted than cake:
An icy cold banana and salted caramel milkshake.
Yes, nothing shows civility and democratic style
Like dousing those we cannot stand with frigid milky bile.
Let all those who, with open minds, this method now promote
Hold firmly to this dissidence (I think I’ll cast my vote).
Yes, let us join the throwing trend and now be liberated
(I’d rather drink the tasty treat and let things be debated.
I’d rather dialogue, although I still might look askance,
Than join the throng, the lactose mob, against intolerance.)
Photograph: Özkan Bilgin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Observation
Give me the lens and not the screen
so eye on eye we better see,
an optic unhinged
fixed ever outward
ever tighter in focus
down to Seurat’s single points of paint,
down to the microscopic world
of a drop of blood,
or at least up close,
each dandelion seed-cap defined,
fine white sparklers,
umbrellas that catch the wind,
the tactile atmosphere
of an herbaceous planet
on which an insect floats
awaiting a sudden breeze
when off he flies
untethered and free.
Photograph: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images
Disappointment
(in the style of Emily Dickinson)
Disappointment is
the wind-blown dandelion seeds
trapped in a spider’s web
hanging on barbed wire.
