By All Memes Necessary

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I love flowers but I am sick of flowers.
I am sick of the sweet stench of the Latin
names of flowers
and shrubs
trailing
down
the page
masquerading
as a poem.

The imagism of the ancients is dead.
I will no more tether the beauty of these words
these ideas
to the image
and play
your conceited
games.

And anyway, the images that matter most are ignored:
The electrode on the testicle.
The drowning man in the prison cell.
The laughing guard.
The grinning despot
fondling
his pallet
of stolen
money.

I could tolerate imagism in one interminable lyric poem upon another
were the images necessary, the memes violent and true.
But I will not tolerate the stench
of servile
taxonomy
trailing
down
the page

like a poem.