The Winning Poems

A CHARM FOR THE HAEMOSPERMIA
Donald Atkinson

Oh, there's been blood in it right from the start.
Neptune's went claret-coloured in the sea, and
Onan's bright magenta as it hit the sand.
Multiply or contract out, somewhere there's hurt.
When the skies of the turning globe ran scarlet
From infiltration of the starry sperm,
Consultant Faustus, hell-bent and getting warm,
Correctly diagnosed a leaking heart.
Either something the bastards put in the water
Or what we all took in with our mother's milk,
It goes right through the scheme, like rhyme in sonnet.
Mere 'show' in the son, full course in the daughter,
Its purples blood the rose, or stain the silk.
He called it haemony.
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it.

Image (photograph)
Copyright of this poem remains with the author.
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