The Female Pheasant’s Handsome Lover
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
The Noh fan opens out upon the stage.
The female pheasant’s lover is the point.
Her attitude to beauty makes her sage:
When males are gorgeous, birds and we anoint
Them with a distant adoration. Then
The cocks of different kinds each make their move
And are rejected by one set of men,
The largest group, because they have to prove
Their cocks are just as worthy, though they’re not.
The largest group of women and of guys
Cannot accept the truth that certain hot
Ones are more lovely, …so these groups aren’t wise:
No wisdom in these larger lots because
Of foolish pheromones, their ugly laws.
~ Phillip Whidden