Brobdingnag and Lilliput

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

When weakness is the power needed, choose

The “weakness.”  Orchid glory flares too, too

Much.   Choose the single cherry blossom.  Blues

Of peacock and electric wings are blue

Too much, so choose the silent bluebell wood.

The tropic sunset overblows the reds

And oranges.  Remember there is good

In quiet things, embroidery’s silken threads.

The emperor has dreams of vaster lands

And ocean realms, forgetting childhood days

When he and friends and brothers used small hands

To build a tiny dam and make joy blaze.

  The epic is not needed.  Choose the small.

    Choose haiku and the sonnet for the tall.

~ Phillip Whidden