Young Donald

   A Sonnet Sequence

 

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

Philadelphia on Cape Canaveral’s

Sun and Sea Breeze

My brother Donald, bigger, bolder, strong,

Loved women just a bit too much, too like

Don Juan.  He loved to poke his hairy prong

Inside.  He thrust it just enough like spike

To nail them to his heart.  He lives in ghost

Land now, in gray and white, unless the Pope

Is right.  If so, then with the heavenly host

Don’s praising God and cockless.  That’s the hope,

Or Donald is in Purgatory or

In Hell because of all that loving sin

With women.  Yet he loved me, too, not for

The same attraction, brother love not thin.

    I, thin like ghosts, ardored him in return.

      He gave so much, I did not need to yearn.

Warm Sunniness

 

Together by the ocean brothers were

In silliness of love.  In innocence

They love.  The one has not grown any fur.

The other has it in his pits, not dense

And spreading; nearly, almost not quite seen

Unless your eye might search for it.  Shoulder

Hides it, just a peek.  Clear love looks clean

In younger brother — much, as in older.

Clean Cape Canaveral beach sand, salty though

Because they both were male, lets muscles strain

In comedy, in cleanliness’s glow,

Not beau and beau but brothers lacking stain.

  We smile at them.  They have not razor groomed

    And look as if they neither one is doomed.

But Adam Boned Up Better and Worse

 

The dimple in the older brother’s chin

Is barely visible beside the sea.

It is as if in Eden that one sin

Has disappeared among the sea grapes, free

Though, still, from male iniquity.  The sand

Is Cape Canaveral beige, the perfect ground

For Christ to paint a portrait on.  No brand

Of evil is allowed here.  He has frowned

Edenic nastiness away.  The young

Man looks at us still here.  Naivety

Is everywhere.  He even hides his tongue

That he will use on women, desperately.

  The muscles and the modest, modest hair

    Imply existence of his hairy pair.

     That Gouge

It’s just a formal portrait, maybe for

A yearbook or some long-time lasting thing

Like that.  Yet then an unexpected roar

Of angels lifts us up on angel wing

And song.  We notice that small dimple in

The chin.  By God it stuns us.  Then we know

That Christ exists.  It is as if no sin

Has ever been charmed up by cameras, no

Effulgent innocence has ever been

Clicked up by camera lens, a beauty like

It never noticed anywhere, not seen

Except in blood that drips from Jesus’ spike.

  You know this boy has never sinned.  Just look

    Again.  It dips, this only holy nook

    The Pre-Seminary Student

He buttons up his shirt.  He leans against

The shame of coming back from washing plates,

Of having sweat in stains.  Our eyes are fenced

From seeing these.  No sinful evening waits

For him in Christian dormitory bed

Unless his hand provides relief, that hand

That washes dishes.  Girls will not give head

There much against the holy law’s command

Where Thou Shalt Not is everywhere that boys

Desire.  A Sabbath evening full of song

And prayer is looming with its sacred noise.

It scorns his stretched testosteronal prong.

  Abide with me the Vesper’s music sings.

    He wanks away till tingling semen stings.

 

 ’Twas The New Jerusalem that Will Not Pass Away

 

The shadows in the picture do not mean.

The darkness in the ocean out beyond

White wavelets does not mean, since all I’ve seen

Is beauty, beauty.  He was fond

Of me, though Christ knows why.  Meaninglessness

Cram packs the cosmos.  It defies Christ’s eye

To find the meaning.    The meaningless mess

Where non-existent seraphimmings fly

Is too existent.  Heaven there upon

A tideless sea, with meaning might

Be clear, much clearer in that city’s dawn,

His New Jerusalem’s evading night.

  It’s there that Donald lives among his saints,

    His Roman Catholic saints, beyond sea taints.

His Face and Body Were Not His Only Beauties and Christ Triumphed

You know how guys are, silliness extreme,

And maybe that is why we love them since

They don’t grow up.  They make you want to scream

At them.  They think that they are like a prince

And you should bow in fealty.  Donald, though,

Was crushed enough by Mama to become

My loving brother.  He had learned to grow

To love me.  Mother loved me.  Turning from

Me wasn’t in his heart.  He put his arm

Around my shoulders, held me to him for

His own love, maybe this despite the harm

That she had done him.  Love lurked in his core.

  Forgiving her as death approached him, he

    Embraced his mother also, finally.

Like Being in Eternal Amniotic Fluid

 

If Donald were in Limbo, how limp

Would Donald be, how languid for the Pope

And lady loves?  He easily might scrimp

On stuff like sex since there would be no scope

Of pinkness in between their legs.  If those

In Limbo have desires, might angel hands

Bring birthday presents wrapped in wriggling bows,

Or is it like Nirvana wrapped in bands

Of bliss and numbness, Buddha offering him

A piece that passeth understanding.  Free

From virgin hairs to penetrate at whim,

He then would not require them to agree.

  A different fuzziness encradles thought

    In him away from Catholic should and ought.

~ Phillip Whidden