Lopped and Crippled
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
So little full-limbed poetry survives
The ancient Greeks, we’re left to deal with things
Grammarians have saved for us—and lives
Of poets put on plinths though lacking wings.
Biographies are mutely hard to piece
Together, and of course we don’t know if
The details, not destroyed by time, release
Carved truths in dithyrambic lines. A whiff
Of verisimilude wafts past, but
Everything’s less certain than we want.
We want those golden images that jut
Up like flames of truth, not ones that taunt
Us with their spikes of hints and pale-eyed winks.
We want whole works, not a moth-eaten sphinx.