“A Channel Passage”
The ugliness of love, that sickness known
To him and everyone, deserves to be
Discussed and sonnetized. A groan
With nausea upon the sickening sea
Of hormones, yep, testosterone and such,
Has been the poets’ tune forever since
The birth of verse, experienced too much
By Sappho and the others. Innards wince
And try to throw it up, but what comes out
Are sonnets and a villanelle or two.
A violence of feeling or a pout
Is what we get, a rhyming kind of spew.
What passage does he mean, though? Can he mean
The one that Denham gave below his spleen?
~ Phillip Whidden