The Gloomy Gardener

I know a man who grows a garden of shivers
With pathways and borders made out of groans
The tears of his sorrow flows into rivers
Draining flowers and shrubs of their moans

His privet privations are making him lonely
Secluded heartache impeding his herbs
Replacing his veg with a new vocabulary
Onions die beneath new nouns and verbs

His heart is snagging on thorns

He stares from his window watching rain fall on roses
At the terror and sadness that grows under his trees
His life lies in fallow and he sadly supposes
His solitary soul will be covered with weeds

Forlornly he digs and sows amidst all of his shivers
Despairs as his daisies die at his touch
His wretchedness rolls over hills in the distance
He never did like looking at hills that much

His hope is covered in moss

When his spade hits the ground you can hear the earth weeping
When he forks through the fields you can see the earth bleed
He’s taken to whisky and pills before he starts sleeping
But whisky and pills are not what he needs

The gardener of glooms was sat in the boozer
I cheered him up by filling his glass
He was sulky and sullen, looks a real bruiser
But his smile of moonlight said “I’ve found a lass”

A sunbeam had shone in his soul

“She’s gorgeous and buxom, wrote my crop rotator
But sometimes looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge
Comes up from the village to buy my potatoes
And I wowed her with my tasty veg”

I passed on my commiserations and said well done mucker
No more peace, quiet or seclusion for you
But why do you still look such a miserable f*cker?
“She’s made my life hell, don’t know quite what to do”

A cloud moved in front of the moon

My head was a fuzz and I said I don’t follow you
He flashed me some tremors and said “now, listen to me”
She’s the melons in my melancholia
And she’s the miss in my misery”

“My quiet’s been crushed, my shivers are dying
All her pleasures and saucies have gone to my head
My garden’s neglected and though I’ve been trying
I’m just spending far too much time in my bed”

His body was feeling his age

“What she gives me in love, she crushes peace with a shatter
Puts girl bits and pieces all over my place
Where once I had quiet I just have this natter
And I no longer recognise my own wrinkled face”

“For no reason at all she’ll scream or she’ll blub
And say I think nothing of her but bed
Every night I give her the quiet and slip down the pub
Which isn’t true, she brilliantly cleaned out my shed

A sudden light fading away

“If I carry on this way I’ll end up in the grave
And my terrors and nightmares will all fade away”
The choice is simple, is it love or the garden you crave?
He drained his glass and said “I think I’ve thought of a way”

He stomped home in a gale of screeches and blisters
Bought the girl dinner and gifts to prove he was no miser
Invited his nieces and nephews and sisters
Used their ground bones as a good fertiliser

His horror spun gold into straw

His garden screamed in anguish, shamed in revulsion
Scratching and pushing him further away
His own deeds haunted his sleep in repulsion
He woke in shivers at the dawn of each day

Now his garden is filled with flowers and fragrance
His smile never wavers and his love is in bloom
His children play and his nightmares were banished
The first morning of his hot honeymoon

Where once he grew shivers he now has carnations
The pathsways of moans are now paved with gold
From the sunshine that lights up his garden
And the woman who keeps out the cold