Poems from the Twelve-Hour Sonnet Contest: The Semper Augustus Whispers to Its Last Buyer, 1637, Daniel Galef

 The most expensive tulip during the 17th-century Dutch tulip-mania was the Semper Augustus, a variety of “Rembrandt” or “broken” tulip with streaked petals caused by mosaic virus. According to Charles Mackay in The Madness of Crowds, the final owner purchased a single bulb for twelve acres of land, just before the bubble burst and the flower became worthless.

Daniel Galef's first book,Imaginary Sonnets (Word Galaxy/Able Muse Press, 2023), is a collection of persona poems from the point of view of different historical figures and literary characters.

The Semper Augustus Whispers to Its Last Buyer, 1637

 

It always shall be summer! Once you learn

this simple, lovely truth, what’s left to fret?

In rows on rows, the crannied wall, the urn,

upon my blooming face the sun shan’t set.

I am a Rembrandt—my mosaic flaw

proves my perfection. Guilders tip the scale

against a florin, as, by natural law,

what falls must rise: The rending of the veil,

the gold within the rose. And yet, a rose

is just a rose is just a rose—but me?—

If I were merely real, I’d wilt from sorrow.

I’m more than what I am: more than I was

just yesterday, and so shall ever be

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

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