Slurs and Omissions

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

You know what dreams are like, are like the white

Of orchid petals, innocent above

The scarlet rose, its stabbing thorns at height

Of Lucifer before he falls, like love

Of Mary when the angel speaks and hides

The crown of thorns and spikes from her.  Our dreams

Are innocent then not.  A dream elides

What’s coming till too late.  The goodness seems

Translucent.  Then it curdles.  There we are

Together in the truth, a nightmare rune

That even evil Druids with a star

To guide can’t know, with sharpened fate its tune.

  That’s us when we withhold the truth, or lie

     Indeed, or fog the facts with lazy sky.

© Phillip Whidden