The Limits of Truth for Poets

Blood never runs as fast as water.  Streams

And rivers, falls and cataracts flow

With force as quick as torture does in screams

But sometimes water courses, grudging, slow

Down.  They are slow as cancer in its threat.

Blood thickens but perhaps not thick as ice

In Arctic hunting grounds.  A steam of jet

Explosion like Old Faithful shoots hot spice

Much warmer than your blood and if a thud

Of hatchet chops an artery, the blurt

Of scarlet life comes out as urgent blood

But not as fast geyser’s puss steam spurt.

  No stallion trumpets thirst to swallow vein

     Red clotting from another stallion’s mane.

© Phillip Whidden