Jeff and Richard

            Jeff and Richard

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

When males are born, they have the chance to be

Men, toiling on a farm in sweat and muck,

Or fishing in the roiling waves the sea

Throws up to cause them misery, to chuck

Them into puking.  Males are born in scores

Of billions—nothing happens.  Then one comes

To change the world forever, flinging doors

So wide that ordinary fate succumbs.

Some men, a very few, go creeping through

The halls of palaces and bishops’ rooms.

A multi-billionaire takes in the view

From nearly outer space defying dooms

That other men endure as heroes, odds

Escaped.  He thinks his armpits are as gods.

Phillip Whidden