False Bloom

[RiverNotch]

False Bloom

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A single bud slit from the land,
The blood of petals stains my hand.
Both rose and I seized by remorse,
For no true flower blooms by force.

Grand scale and capitalization blend well. Last two lines are absolute perfection, but I don't think the poem benefits from the first person perspective in the earlier part -- it removes a sense of objectivity, of emotional purity, from the speaker if he was the one who ended up cutting the flower in the first place, as the second line seems (but not entirely) to indicate. The comma in the first line, too, is inappropriate, I think: though the two thoughts are related, this is a short poem, so even the punctuation must speak, and the sweeping vista of the first line is well-distanced from the intimate intensity of the second -- an em dash, I think, would be better. Finally, though the blood of petals is a vivid image, when I think of a bud being slit from the land, I think of the flower being slit by the stem -- otherwise, this poem's object ends up being completely senseless, rather than seemingly so, which would make the competing agent more human. That is, though I naturally believe the intent was that the blood colored petals be what seems to be a stain on the hand, there is still that somewhat inaccurate implication of the blood erupting from the petals themselves -- change that, if you can.

Summing up:
Again, the last two lines are perfect.
The second line implies that the speaker cut the flower, which is a dissonance unexplored, and thus, distracting -- instead of "my", best someone else's.
The first and second lines are very distant in scope, image, and even, I imagine, time -- better an em dash than a comma.
The blood of petals has that mild but still distracting implication of the blood coming from the petals, which feels inaccurate -- change "petals".