A Samurai Delectating Poetry and Chopping Off Heads with a Nihontō

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

A certain splendor, loftiness in flower,

Magnificence in peony, a jolt

Electrocutes us with pink petaled power.

Appearing like a petaled lightning bolt

Of gentleness, gentility in pink.

A geisha is unsubtlety compared

With natural perfection.  More like stink

The dolled up woman is a falseness snared

In powder, silk brocade and everything

That maleness might demand, except of course

True beauty.  Amputated pretty wing

Is what she is deployed against, what’s coarse.

  It’s challenging to hold realities

    Like these, one gorgeous, one combating sleaze.

© Phillip Whidden