Garden of Hollow Serpents
They descend not wearing velvet robes
stitched from honest stars,
but garments woven
from borrowed halos,
perfumed with white lilies
that never knew their roots.
They speak of stillness
as though silence were a temple;
of gentleness
as though mercy were a language
their sweetened tongues remembered.
They sell the purest serenity
like merchants beneath eclipses,
placing peace
upon polished altars,
asking only
for another soul to kneel.
Do not mistake
the absence of thunder
for the absence of venom.
Some serpents
have learned
to hiss between prayers.
Some abysses
have memorized
the vocabulary of light.
Beneath their gardens
grow neither jasmine nor magnolia
only moonlit pitcher plants,
their chalices open,
sweet with impossible nectar,
waiting for exhausted butterflies
who mistook hunger
for kindness.
There,
the blossoms bloom inward.
Petals become sharp teeth.
Fragrance becomes slow-wave sleep.
Roots become shackles,
coiling around ankles
too hopeful
to question beauty.
They preach stoicism,
yet harvest every trembling heart.
They praise compassion,
yet count mercy
only when it is bleeding.
They glorify forgiveness,
because forgiven wounds
are easier to reopen.
I have seen them—
keepers of immaculate orchards,
watering white roses
with borrowed sunlight,
while beneath the soil
countless sunflower corpses
lie hollow,
their gold devoured
to adorn another mask.
They call themselves shepherds.
Yet wolves have always known
how to imitate
the patience of snowfall.
The oldest predator
is not rage,
it is tenderness
performed
without a soul behind it.
In the deepest caverns,
where no dawn enters,
the ancient serpents
shed not their skin,
but their faces.
Each new smile
another immaculate prophecy.
Each embrace
another silent eclipse.
And those
who truly carry light
never ask
to be worshipped.
They bloom quietly,
like wild chamomile
between forgotten stones,
asking nothing
except stillness.
For real gardens
never hunger
for the sunflowers
that seek shelter.
Only carnivorous flowers
measure love
by what remains
after the petals
have disappeared.
So when they speak
of peace,
look beneath their roots.
When they preach
stillness,
listen for the bones
buried beneath the moss.
And when they promise
to save your sugared soul,
watch,
whether their shadows
lean toward your light,
or away from it.
For the oldest false prophet
was never the loudest.
He whispered
like rain upon marble,
held out
a blossom without scent,
and smiled
while somewhere,
far beneath the earth,
the abyss
opened its mouth
like a flower trap.
Category: Diverse poems
All author's poems: Flora Cocan ![]()
Date of posting: 23 July
Comments: 1
Timp de citire: ~4 min.
Views: 232
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Poems March 8
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Comments 1
Florin Dumitriu