No Ascetic

(Written in 2011)

I'm no ascetic.
I like malls and well-dressed shoppers marching their halls.
I like crystals and the way light dances in them, then falls.
I like a carpeted hall, or a marble one for a crisp footfall.
I like for a song to reach for the sky, then plunge down long.
I like a rosebush to look very much like a pink overdose.
I like my tulips to bloom in waves,
And I like waves to foam like clouds,
And I like clouds to look like fairyland at Christmastime,
I'm no ascetic: that would be pathetic.