Twirls Lacking in Lost Trees

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

Entering the summer

Grove, he finds no trace of Charles.

No hint remains.  None.

~ Shiki [Englished by Phillip Whidden

Just once I went with him to visit one

Old lingering Latvian, a man with skin

So wrinkled that his manly bark could stun

Medusa.  Uglier than Satan’s sin

The puckers we encountered did not seem

To be a part of our smooth lives since we

Were in our twenties.  No apparent seam

Between us three brought on epiphany

Of fate beneath the trees in his back yard.

We guiltlessly felt nothing of his doom

Since we had blond and black-haired beauty.  Hard

Our hearts refused to see the shadows’ gloom.

  Now Chuck is gone beyond all groves.  His curls

    Are gone.  Nothing of him remains in swirls.

© Phillip Whidden