Sunflowers
or
Vincent Van Gogh’d Yay the Preacher



Sunflowers ! Russell, my now teacher brother
Once was their grower, their primary producer.
He was artful, inventive and grew to be a preacher
First selling those flying big Yellow flower-saucers,
in markets, where a lost world begs a passion.

Sunflowers to city-suppliers out of the floristed hills
Off farms along the Great flower-growing Divide
At last, even Australian family dirt-flowerer's
art, could cash-crop the passion of Van Gogh
at least, picked young, long before the seed is dry.

Sunflowers, counting in an aftermath of fan
times as culture stock: Bold, Vivid, Vibrant
The Prints - copy products - old as parrotfood
Bloom a gold-dust of daisies - a hundred years
In getting valued, getting bought.

Helianthus nostalgia romancia
- Artistica spiritualosis iwishia
- solarpowerarticus fadeous
bright, free, and botanical inside the hard
rubber bonds of each bunch.

Buy them off the market florist!
five dollar yellow identities!
vegetarian blooms (not to be consumed)
and a bucket of sensibilities ( like a grace
that’s missing) for your laden table!

1992 © Wayne David Knoll

First published in ‘Watershed’ Magazine, as ‘Sunflowers’, Daylesford Vic. Aug.Sept 1994