PLASTIC ROSES

© JVieira

The Man who invented the plastic rose is dead,
Behold his mark.
His undying flawless blossoms never close
But guard his grave unbending through the dark.
He understood neither beauty nor flowers,
Which catch our hearts in nets as soft as sky
And bind us with a thread of fragile hours,
Flowers are beautiful because they die.
Beauty without the perishable pulse
Is dry and sterile, an abandoned stage
With false forests. But the results
Support this man’s invention. He knows his age;
A vision of our tearless time discloses
Artificial men sniffing plastic roses.

Peter Meinke (1964)