My Sweet Valentine

A rose is a rose

so they say

love’s sweet  bloom

barbed blossom

fragrance for fools.

I prefer an altogether more prosaic prize.

One not besieged by softly spoken lies

and sighs of treachery and lechery

and lustfilled currency.

So take your perfumed promises

And lay them on another’s lips.

For mine are sealed

No not within a kiss

But snarled upon accursed thorn

of truth 

by faded flower quick forgot.