Microbes’ Excretion in the Priests’ Hair
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
I ask you, what’s the use of beauty if
It’s undermined by nuns and monks at prayer,
Their hands unknown to you that have a whiff
Of masturbation on the palms? Beware
The sunset and the gloss of sea. They do
Not tell the truth, not any more than spires
And buttressed walls, not any more than mew
Of kitten means it won’t eat flesh, requires
Its mothers milk alone. The clouds above
Rise closer to the truer doctrine in
Their form. Not one of them is like a dove,
More like the gulping seagull eating sin.
The tourists who have washed their armpits clean
Know more of truths than camera’s darkening sheen.
~ Phillip Whidden
