Garden of Delights

My garden of delights,
infested with such pretty, twisted things,
mandrake root and toadstools
and glistering ravens' wings.
I planted belladona,
such a melancholy crop,
and grew poison ivy in blistered vines -
a haven in the bogs.

Skullcap grew amongst the weeds,
its slithering, slivered, ragged leaves
a home to noxious worms
and mealy nettle-bugs.
I gathered withered poppies,
a delicious apertif,
and brewed brackish tea from bagworm seeds
and garnished it with slugs.

Brambles thrived between the stones -
the hedges overblown with ash and bone
to welcome all my guests,
who hunched and huddled in the damp
covered up with dark and dank,
they bobbed and hung their withered heads
and supped on wolfbane tea and griddle-thorns.
How nice to know they all are dead!