Taira no Atsumari and Kumagai Naozane

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

“play on” ~ John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

The complications in what people call a man

The complications in what people call a man

Loom worse than Freud or Jung, Gordian mix.

A man takes in a snarled up, knotty span

Of yarn impossible through prayer to fix.

A flute not blown since Atsumari’s head

Was chopped by warrior sword hangs grim, grim in

A Pure Land shrine.  Upon a monkish bed

That Kumagai can, muttering, pray for sin

To be undone — whatever — but the sword

Undid the flautist with one stroke.  The truth

Remains.  The twisted snarling of a lord

Is what the boy last heard.  So much for youth.

  So much for mercy and for fatherhood,

    So much for noble men, so much for good.

©  Phillip Whidden