"The Seed of the Weed" by Darcy John Bouchard (c) 2023, is a divers collection of my poetry, likened unto a garden of allegory in the genre of dream vision-as in the Garden of the Unicorn (i.e., of the "Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries"), whereof the Pearl Poet, who, in mourning the loss of his 'perle, ' falls asleep in an "erber grene" and dreams he is transported to an other-worldly garden, wherein he encounters the 'Pearl-maiden' standing across a stream in a strange landscape. Plunging into the river in desperation to cross, he awakes from his dream back in the world and resolves to fulfill the will of God.
Thus, stricken of love's loss and heart's anguish, herein we drown in inky dreams.

Pearls symbolize chastity and connect the poet's anima to the 'virgin goddess of the Moon, ' e'er present within the psychedelic mind-mush of our collective unconsciousness, in our ancestral memory's barrow e'er since we first emerged into Eden out of paleolithic barbarity dragging "original sin" with us into the lithonic era of the potter's wheel and flint stone.

The poet sows mystic passion and devotion in beautiful, highly emotional words and phrases: Christian scholars inappropriately translate pagan myths about the 'hunt for the unicorn' into an allegory for Christ's relationship with the Ever-Virgin Mary (Semiramis), whereas she is we virgin souls trapped in bodies of mortal flesh plagued of love's burden of sin. Thus, the unicorn was associated with moral virtues, in medieval art, with particular emphasis on chivalry, heraldry, and chastity and purity-as with the Pearl Poet.
The tapestries can also be read as of an incarnation of purity and grace that could be captured only by a virgin, first pursued, and then killed, thence reborn-an allegory for Christ's death: The tapestries were likely created to celebrate a marriage, the archetypical and alchemical properties of the story's sexuality evolve amidst a phenomenal display of floral embroidery-unlike fig leafs used to papal censure illuminated books, paintings and sculptures-a damnatio memoria of Love's very voice-it is more celebratory of a bed chamber, with the leashed unicorn symbolizing the bridegroom tamed by love.

The tempest doth not move a lover's heart, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it, for it is through the eyes that hellish passion is kindled aflame-a fire consuming hearts, burning our souls as they bathe, O Reader, in the furnace of love's holocaust offering to the Lady and her wenches. As an icy flame that burns which does not consume, I scribbled these poesies... hot embers bled from myne sordid psyche as ink emblazoning a heart's cold infamy. Sure, eh! 'twas a sincere conviction of celibacy which hardened myne own heart-and this old stone, sigh! 'twas long ago devoted to Ammit and so devoured by her in the everlasting Lake of Fire, awaiting e'ery wretch unworthy of love neither nor relinquishing love.

These poems celebrate the joy and goodness of human love between the sexes and the sense of inner fulfillment and harmony with God's creation that arise from such love... giving us a godly perspective on the love between a man and a woman. As we encounter God's ideal, our shortcomings, sins, and failures become self-evident: As we lovers, His beloved, as the "Song of Songs" represents Jesus' relationship with us, the damned: His people: You and I: His Bride. Yet, whereas the "Canticle of Canticles" points to a 'godly' marriage that reflects and shines of the love life's experiences for us... many of these dainties be but unpetaled bawd, eh!

Song of Solomon 7:1
"Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower."