There sits atop my table a white damasked rose
A glorious silken blossom larger than my big palm
“Keep it” Jimmy whispers before going to war,
“It will be sustained as long as I live”

My fingers danced on the laughter silvered petals
Of precious juiced scent, it stays un-perturbed
The delirious burning rose in the slender fluted glass

I held it to my bosom, as if I harbored
Jimmy’s life to safety too, auspicious it was.

And it sits there my white precious rose!
Weeks! Months! I know because I have counted the days
It shone so bright that if indented into glorious empyreans,
It would shine so brightly birds would sing,
And think it were not night.

Until, Dawn’s rose fingers touched the sky
I looked at my damasked rose
Withered, atrocious, it bore the lips of death

Shackled, disheveled my pendulous lids swelled
A vicious arrow struck upon my heart
Cold stringencies, the eye of the storm
Gripped my cold, bleeding heart
With war, the poisoned chalice is squeezed through humanity’s lips,
It makes the young ones as silent as graves..