Rhodojendron.

Some blooms for Bloomsday paired with prose inspired by Molly’s “Yes” soliloquy at the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

If you don’t like it, I suggest wandering around Dublin drinking pint after pint of Guinness and wailing like Homer until you do.

Or you can try looking at last year’s post - although I’m not sure that will do you any good, either...

Happy Bloomsday!

NO I WONT NO

No I wont No I said no even if his heart is going like mad no and he can feel my breasts all perfume no I will push him away because I am a mountain flower

and I will say no even when my eyes ask again and again no it is not just as well one as another and a kiss under the Moorish wall means nothing whether I wear a red or a blue no or if there is a rose in my hair Andalusian or otherwise no I am not a girl from Gibraltar I am not a girl at all I am a Flower of the mountain

no because rosegardens and jessamine are not rhododendrons running wild through the pines stretching tall leaning against redwoods as they grow old and beautiful so you can keep your castles and your carts and your market and your shops and your governors and your kings and your watchmen and your gardens and your houses and all of those boys

they chain you like your namesake you wait and weave then untangle night after night staving off the inevitable taking your shelter under a shroud of death while watching your girlhood vanish

but all birds fly for sailors and for Spanish girls and for me too so I will take all the pleasure I can I will look out over the sea and sky and if he asks me to say no I will not lead him on even if I am thinking so many things he does not know

I will not get round him I will go through him

he does not understand or feel what a woman is

the sun may shine for me today but tomorrow it will rain

my body is not some caged rose chained to its bed my body is wild my body is a Flower of the mountain

no he said do not lose your breath no matter how long the kiss or how many the years or leapyears I will eat that seedcake myself

I do not want him to propose to me no I want him to shed his tweed suit and straw hat and not lie on me or to me but walk with me under the rhododendrons

the sun sets for you he said the moon rises for you he said the rain pours for you

he lies I already know for certain that all of it was not made for me by somebody or anybody there was nobody who made it all and conscience doesnt matter there is no right and wrong even filth deserves beauty life does what it does an atheist is as bad as a priest no one can say what comes after for everything that is created something must be destroyed if there is no learning then there is no life molly snap your fingers all you want they are saying there is no god because there is no god.