Gillian Osborne
Poem With Oratory and Roses
              Unlike a catastrophe, a rose—
              its ahistorical petals—
              not an interruption in an office
              where a woman is making notes
              toward the smell of onions by an open window
              where another woman is making
              space apart from anguish or family
              for anticipation, or humidity.
                                                                A rose grows.
              1.
              Between seer and seen
                            anthropologist and hunter
                            giver and the given
              a blob of emollient color
              5.
              The petals of the family
              are irregular in number
              2.
              A rose referring to other roses
                            More often than not
              Feminized and prickling
                                          As a lover references the hunt of bodies for a body
              Giving in or changing
              If a rose refers to loving
              opening, suspended in the interrupting dash
              Dear one, dearest –
                            Taking this second to tell you how suspicious I am
                            of rhetoric, promises, compromises, or the symphonic ending.
                            Ditto narrative, that says it goes
                            and goes. A rose, a pause in the pattern of forgetting.
                                          Some time later, a gentle interruption
                                          in the inorganic order of the poem
                                                               dipping into the platonic
                                          That we cannot accept a world of forms is obvious
                                          It would be all spheres there and god, deigning
                                          But if there were a world of pure formalness
                                          It would be
                                                               siphoned from longing
                                                               all surface, which is suggestion
                                                               which is action towards
                                                               a forming absence
                                          which makes us duplicate
                                          radiating loneliness
                                                               ordered and erotic—
                            When I left
                       Â
Poem With Oratory and Roses
              Unlike a catastrophe, a rose—
              its ahistorical petals—
              not an interruption in an office
              where a woman is making notes
              toward the smell of onions by an open window
              where another woman is making
              space apart from anguish or family
              for anticipation, or humidity.
                                                                A rose grows.
              1.
              Between seer and seen
                            anthropologist and hunter
                            giver and the given
              a blob of emollient color
              5.
              The petals of the family
              are irregular in number
              2.
              A rose referring to other roses
                            More often than not
              Feminized and prickling
                                          As a lover references the hunt of bodies for a body
              Giving in or changing
              If a rose refers to loving
              opening, suspended in the interrupting dash
              Dear one, dearest –
                            Taking this second to tell you how suspicious I am
                            of rhetoric, promises, compromises, or the symphonic ending.
                            Ditto narrative, that says it goes
                            and goes. A rose, a pause in the pattern of forgetting.
                                          Some time later, a gentle interruption
                                          in the inorganic order of the poem
                                                               dipping into the platonic
                                          That we cannot accept a world of forms is obvious
                                          It would be all spheres there and god, deigning
                                          But if there were a world of pure formalness
                                          It would be
                                                               siphoned from longing
                                                               all surface, which is suggestion
                                                               which is action towards
                                                               a forming absence
                                          which makes us duplicate
                                          radiating loneliness
                                                               ordered and erotic—
                            When I left
                       Â