Kimberley Pickaxing
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Two younger readers of the poet ask
Him how he wangles quite so many lines,
So many sonnets, villanelles. That task
Is not so great. He just digs down in mines
Inside his brain which, in three score and ten
Years, he has filled with veins of gems and gold.
Yes, it’s carat-true that like most men
He uses tools to dig out what mines hold
In dark down depths, the esoteric tomes
He pulls from miles long shelves in London, finds
His subject matter from the chromosomes
Of diamond thought from distant human minds.
He follows clues like Sherlock Holmes until
The poems come out in jewel-cut glistening spill.
~ Phillip Whidden