After Xanadu the Muteness of My Heart Crying for Lucifer

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

“If only,” says the lover, “I could dream

Again the words of reverie in sleep,

If I could capture in my chest the gleam

Of poetry for eyes I love, those deep

With beauty black at centers but with blue

Of Heaven’s sky, the blue of crystal sea

Around the New Jerusalem, myth blue,

If only I could wake the mystery

Of love, romance and passion, I could sing

Beyond mere sonneteers and sing beyond

The love that others knew without the wing

Of Lucifer or Gabriel as wand,

Could wake hallucinogened once again,

And triumph past poor Coleridge’s pain.”

© Phillip Whidden