The Beautiful Shop

'The beautiful shop', the sign read,
'Welcome, welcome in '.
Through the open window, a butterfly
fluttered happily in.

It had spotted among the concrete jungle,
the thing it searched for hours.
The sign, among other things, also stated,
'we sell plastic flowers'.

Innocent ignorant patient, it tried
the flowers one by one.
So many flowers for so many hours
but with nectar none.

Unrewarded, it decided,
to leave that garden dry,
to start foraging once again
for somewhere else to try.

A fool that fell for plastic flowers
an exit could not find.
A task a little too complex
for too simple a mind.

Around the room it fluttered about
without a shade of a notion,
of the ceiling fan, its metallic blades
in spinning circular motion.

Sunlight on a splash of colors,
colors of every shade.
On the garden of plastic flowers,
on a real butterfly dead.

Reviews

[Norma M Sutton]

Nice. This one can be read with many layers and many possible meanings.

[Mauricio Montoya]

Very touching piece.
Excellent write.

[freelancejouster]

i really like this, the description and sadness that lace this piece... flowers are usually happy and so i was... a gentler word than shocked. everything about this prompts me to think of wondrous thoughts, and then death and despair and so much else... you've done something provoking and noteworthy on this page.

a few things: did you mean "welcome, welcome in," in the second line or "welcome, come in"? because the first is rather awkward due to the lilt of your stanzas. i trip over that line every time i read this like a step 2mm higher than all the rest. and the last line do you mean "a real butterfly died"?

[Valentine]

Aww, all of that work pollenating and to no avail..so sad..Valentien

[Tommy]

Wow, I love the metaphor that this could represent. I could see the happenings play out right before my mind, and applied it to the way men and women fall for fake beauty all the time, it is sad really, but this butterfly is not alone. People try to feed off of humanity's fake nature, but in reality we are never satisfied. This is where this piece took me, and I loved it!

Great Write! Headed For My Favorites!
RLG,
Tommy

[Ed Hart]

a song for all of us who wandered where the beauty was all plastic

[pheasant]

i enjoy the themes of nature you evoke, and the contrasting of modern man's influences on such pure innocent beauty, as in the butterfly. i'm beginning to sense this as a common thread in some of your works... and a good one to bring to light in this day and age, when mother nature has many times been shoved aside in man's pursuits for personal gratifications and profits.

[Amanda_Rose]

it started off so nice and pleasant and then BAM dead butterflies. that's like thinking about a dead kitty. not happy at all.

but i do love the stanza:

A fool that fell for plastic flowers
an exit could not find.
A task a little too complex
for too simple a mind.

is this an allegory to man? i feel like men can fall for "plastic women," fake, ditzy, etc. and they don't even know why they fall for them becaus of their simple mind. i dont know, just how i imagined the poem.

[Sydney Evans]

Aw, poor butterfly. This was very well written and incredible. You could really feel the butterfly with you picture you painted (: