Red

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

The red around us means STOP, DANGER, NO

If it is human-made.  Perhaps it hints

Some other code in nature.  In the glow

Of skies at sunset, reddish orangey tints

Portend good omens, say old-timey men

In seaports.  In transfusion bags their red

Means life.  The wattle of a pecking hen

Brings smiles with clucking.  On an Irish head

The color causes beauty in bright lines

Of poetry and also for love’s paint,

Rosetti paintings.  Brushes use the signs

Of red in Titian paintings of a saint.

  Surrealism never uses it

    For fragrance of a praying hypocrite.

~ Phillip Whidden