Mr Foley ate lunch on our lawn
He still had his gloves on
When he finished up his luncheon
His pick quick work of the air between him and the ground’s hair, like a policeman’s baton
Clattering an insurgent’s head, station said it never happened.
Naturally as a gardener he had a love for all that grew
He loved nothing more than flower scents in his Roman nose
Floral aromas arose from the plants aboded there
Therein planted abounded, weaker roots supplanted
Weird fronds, alien planet, aliens have landed and filled his planters
Bent over rows of red roses, digging furrows for posie seeds
Plants flourish in his care, dormant seeds sprout shoots where he shoots his hose
Soaks his yard like a Rambo sheriff
Hyper buttercups in giddy clusters scream for attention
He loves the rarely mentioned and the scantly scented
Hosts of his plants are used in medicine
Taproots of the beggarticks easy to tap in and root out, exiling mendicants
Mates think he’s a mental case
They’re fingering to lick the paste
Compacted at the bag bottom
He’s in Woodies comparing compost sacks
To mulch down the rockery
Nosegay nine miles round his grounds
Poppy-sewn fencing it girdles around
Roses trained into spirals
Colour of ice and fireballs
Adorn the wooden arms
From oak hewn
Of a charming garden pergola
Barred shadows tattoo the clipped lawns
Short back and sides, sheared Shaun
The Sheep clipped short before he’s dipped.
Behind a red sheet metal grange
Grow a range of strange orange
Strains
To protect his rare plants he erects a bollard
House like something out of JG Ballard’s
Drowned World, reclaimed by nature
At pains to train the terrain to his way, he hacks hews selectively chooses and pollards trees
Everyday at ten past three he breaks for tea for ten minutes, perhaps
A chain link fence marks the confines of his demesne
In a white flame, white as bride day, bindweed lilies he wound through the gaps, to stay sane
In a world of boundaries and walls and deep driven staves
He talks to the plants as they grow
They know only one voice
They know
They grow toward the light no matter what
Boxed or potted or in a hot porch, sought
Solar honey.
Above his flowerbeds so neatly arranged
Is he genius or deranged?
He speaks to his geraniums.
Alchemisland 
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