Paradiso and Inferno as Purgatorio

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

You know that you have found the man when:

Asphalt streets of dust before the rain

Claim New Jerusalem’s clear gold; ban men

Who do not have the jet of curls that strain

Your heart, its veins and arteries with bliss;

And when, yes! when that man, that man alone

Fills up the cosmos as he plants a kiss

Upon your — open —  lips —  and turns your mouth to throne

Of Christ, Jehovah and Mohammed’s God —

And Brahman brims your breast with being, tongue —

And all — with minor avatars all awed

With ramming reverence, your spirit stung.

  Your spirit stung with angels, Gabriel

    And Michael, has the undertastes of Hell.

© Phillip Whidden