Never Still but Still

How dangerous a poet set in Zen

Might be is shown:  erased Komachi mossed

In centuries knowing all too well how men

And women lose their love, how love is lost

In bed — and everywhere, in incense burned

More hotly than their lovers’ bodies knew,

In rituals more sacred as they churned

Their lust and love together with his skew

Inside his lover (almost “victim” said

By some) or with the swallowing of what

He spews inside that mouth and head

Or down much lower where he leaves his glut.

  The lovers’ tombstones in the West outlast

    Love’s passion yet we know it, ever vast.

~ Phillip Whidden