Crushed Wings of Longing
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse
“Some say he was around sixty-three years old when he met his death”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets
Much longer than the greatest poet I
Have lived. We have no notion just how much
He wrote. Our image (greater than the sky)
Of him is larger than a man can touch
With many thousand lines of verse, of blue
And white perfection. Tens of thousands of
The purest sonnets — no matter how true —
Cannot trump Orpheus’s mythic love,
The love and deaths caught up in fate and song,
Because those poems are not doomed by hell.
No other poetry can be as strong
As gods and fate. No sonnets can excel
Immortal death, not even if they kill
Bright adoration raised by ardor’s thrill.