Know Thyself Alone

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The dream was heaving like a nightmare, more

Like being drowned beneath an iceberg set

To sail forever where there is no shove.

The dream was like Goliath’s dying sweat,

Was full of something like a slingshot stone,

And yet it lacked the pointed threat of dreams

Named nightmares.  It was heaviness alone,

Not filled with threat but more like velvet streams.

This dream omitted boys and men.  Instead

The room was filled with woman things and girls

With giggles and a roundaboutish bed.

The room was tangent-filled with flirting curls.

  He wanted outright, honest, manly force

    To deal with, wanting just himself, of course.

~ Phillip Whidden