Sung Incense-vague Roses

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

“The good is oft interrèd with their bones”

Prepare your poetry to be your song

For singing after you are gone.  The grave

Is not for it.  As wraith-like you may long

For deathlessness, let lines be architrave

And temple.  Whole, its pillars are the stone

And statues made of marble and the smoke

Around them.  Let your poems be the throne,

If not Apollo’s, then a lightning stroke

Of Zeus and Muses, white the long-term vows

Of later voices still intone with rhyme

And rhythm.  Let your poems be the prows

Of ships across . . . tomorrows . . . future time.

  Write on.  Speak on.  Chant on.  Depend upon

    Your lines and stanzas to provide a dawn.

© Phillip Whidden