Ian Lindsay
Ian Lindsay works as a content writer in digital marketing and is trying his hand at something he considers more important than a corner office. Mr. Lindsay graduated from Eckerd College with a degree in Creative Writing. In his spare time, he enjoys amplified music and bourbon named after fictitious southerners.
Published 10/07/17
Published 10/07/17
"Large White Door"
I.
I walked toward a large white door,
Oblivious to the incendiary burn
casting licks
About the household. The white paint on the other side
Of the poplar-wood bubbling up like a blister. The peat scent
unheeded. Piles of covetous flames--
the kind with blue murky hues
Waited across the frame,
Cresting the penumbra of the large white door.
There is something to be said about the Rose.
The Chrysanthemum and Hyacinth—virtuous flora--
come without the prick and thorn. To hold the Rose,
One must ready themselves
with a delicate grasp of the stem.
The brass knob was pearl hot.
As his fingers grasped the porta a soffietta
The frivolousness of opening the door
became a more serious manner.
II.
You are the Rose.
I am a dog. When you came into this place
It was not in the arrangement of a bouquet.
A wildflower Rose planted long ago
as all Roses are; because the seeds are remarkably
hard to find, and grow in the cold.
Budding red petals stretched out like a congregation
was cause for champagne,
But was toasted to with swill from the barrel.
My mind lifted into an ozone
Of manic adrenaline steeped in cortisol.
Wide. Spread. Panic.
Her house is on fire.
I’m here at her large white door
Opening the cantos inside.
If gravity is a force,
Then so is love and I was forced I walked into Gehenna.
Galvanizing heat charred the bristlecone hair on my arms
And I saw her--
III.
Laying the groundwork for floristry is an exercise
in symbolism and cosmogonies; some aphroditic
Composition branded on the heart.
Not the glands. In this way, the Rose’s utility
Is utterly more important than combustion engines or a French press.
Why resort to clichés? Silly things like society
Tell us to pluck a dozen, when we only needed one.
Still, we spend a lifetime thinking
Of nuanced ways to tell you the Rose “You’re beautiful.”
The shattered
mirror of my vision
Inverted.
From amorphous shards
Back to a flawless mirror
And in the reflection was the rational animal,
and flames.
Forcing my way past the variegated
Chimneys I came upon her still body lying
On a cotton couch untouched by doom,
flight giving way to fight—I hoisted her
Up in my arms like a Cheyenne infant
Tucked in a cradleboard and marched
Back toward the large white door—fire in the periphery.
A perennial swelling inside
Carrying her outside the frame
Of her large white door.
I.
I walked toward a large white door,
Oblivious to the incendiary burn
casting licks
About the household. The white paint on the other side
Of the poplar-wood bubbling up like a blister. The peat scent
unheeded. Piles of covetous flames--
the kind with blue murky hues
Waited across the frame,
Cresting the penumbra of the large white door.
There is something to be said about the Rose.
The Chrysanthemum and Hyacinth—virtuous flora--
come without the prick and thorn. To hold the Rose,
One must ready themselves
with a delicate grasp of the stem.
The brass knob was pearl hot.
As his fingers grasped the porta a soffietta
The frivolousness of opening the door
became a more serious manner.
II.
You are the Rose.
I am a dog. When you came into this place
It was not in the arrangement of a bouquet.
A wildflower Rose planted long ago
as all Roses are; because the seeds are remarkably
hard to find, and grow in the cold.
Budding red petals stretched out like a congregation
was cause for champagne,
But was toasted to with swill from the barrel.
My mind lifted into an ozone
Of manic adrenaline steeped in cortisol.
Wide. Spread. Panic.
Her house is on fire.
I’m here at her large white door
Opening the cantos inside.
If gravity is a force,
Then so is love and I was forced I walked into Gehenna.
Galvanizing heat charred the bristlecone hair on my arms
And I saw her--
III.
Laying the groundwork for floristry is an exercise
in symbolism and cosmogonies; some aphroditic
Composition branded on the heart.
Not the glands. In this way, the Rose’s utility
Is utterly more important than combustion engines or a French press.
Why resort to clichés? Silly things like society
Tell us to pluck a dozen, when we only needed one.
Still, we spend a lifetime thinking
Of nuanced ways to tell you the Rose “You’re beautiful.”
The shattered
mirror of my vision
Inverted.
From amorphous shards
Back to a flawless mirror
And in the reflection was the rational animal,
and flames.
Forcing my way past the variegated
Chimneys I came upon her still body lying
On a cotton couch untouched by doom,
flight giving way to fight—I hoisted her
Up in my arms like a Cheyenne infant
Tucked in a cradleboard and marched
Back toward the large white door—fire in the periphery.
A perennial swelling inside
Carrying her outside the frame
Of her large white door.