Sapphire Surprise
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
When gods first started making humans from . . .
The bits of dirt around the earth . . . , the shapes
Were much the same if made of dust with scum
Or gold mixed in with juice of purple grapes.
If platinum was mixed with clay or dust,
The forms were much the same with arms and legs,
With hands and feet and other bits for lust,
Those outer things and inner things for eggs.
Amazing to the deities was how
So many unexpected colors came
To skin and hair . . . and then the shock (kerpow!)
Of iris blue. Gods knew they couldn’t tame
That, so they gave the beings full free will
And left them to their kinks . . . to love and kill.
~ Phillip Whidden
Skewing Veer
The gods rejected certain tints of skin.
The blues were banished—royal, sky, and sea.
Complexions made of blue were too like sin
But gods approved the serendipity
Of blue veins underneath the skin of blondes
And blonds, especially the veins they showed beneath
The coverings on swelling manly wands,
Those wands with stretchy, tetchy, singing sheath
For thrusting thrills. The gods rejected dark
And lighter purples, too. These colors turned
Off passion. Brighter reds were far too stark,
So scarlet was rejected lest it burned
Up passion in the eyes of those who saw
It, shocked a fervent ardor into yaw.
~ Phillip Whidden