I can recall a time before the age of tears A time when nights were short and banquets went all day A time like a garden A time like a bouquet As I would hold a flower, so I held you near You would complain that flowers wilted in this place So cut off from their roots, they'd only go to waste Then you would say 'forgive me' I would laughingly foresee our future bright within our cut-glass vase. Back at that time I would have loved to be a poet And like Appolinaire sing to your lilac eyes But how the time was short as it went flying by I loved you that was all and never thought to show it I didn't beg the muse to bring me poetry I didn't count my fingers or polish the rhyme I loved you nothing else it isn't such a crime The poem of your body was enough for me It was before the age of tears It was a time when flowers were mine. The flowers on your bedside table slowly fade On your way to oblivion, you are fading too I only want to lie a moment here with you As I compose a canticle that's most profane. With the help of these flowers let me find the way To sing of your dear body perfectly portrayed First take the chrysanthemum Burning like the anthem of your hair the colour of an autumn day Then moving down the face that worry can't attain Across your forehead to the thicket of your brow Your Venus fly-trap eyes are hungry waiting now To be compared to morning glories after rain. No, rather talk of columbine, of flowering thyme Of blues that turn to grey, of colours never dared The morbid mauve of clematis is to be found there Let me embrace the sad horizon through your eyes The colour of before the age of tears, A time when tears were kind. Remember there within the creases of your ear Preserving you from harm are sweet forget-me-nots And when your anger takes control of all your thoughts An iris petal pulses at your throat just here. Those sudden fits of anger swept across your face Just like a storm across the tossing fields would race And then a peony would grow whose boiling blood would flow When you bit your lip in a burst of rage. You see I think of you and flowers just appear There in your spreading blood a field of poppies grows The reds of your body answer me like echoes When I cry 'flowers' the word 'blood' is all I hear. Red - the heart of narcissus that your stomach bears Red is the golden fleece and red the peaceful glen Red - the carnation which so bewitched Verlaine Red is your sex, an endless red beyond compare Passion has drowned in the age of regrets and tears The age of tears. I cut your life short as I would a flower stem. Without a second thought, I stripped your branches bare I drank the water, dried your flowers without care As I behold your death my head begins to spin This body that I loved - this flesh that tempts me still, Will suffer prayers, procedures, and assorted ills A bouquet on the rubbish heap I find I'd rather keep to flowers made of taffeta and silk. So give me lilies made of pearl or made of tin Dead autumn leaves and plastic roses by the score I must convince myself as I keep gathering more That the language of flowers is no longer living. There, there, don't worry. I'll be still. You mustn't smile To hear my song as sad as a December day It's more than time to throw these rotten flowers away Then let me stay here in your room for just a while.