Love Sharpened and Cheapened
Two Sonnets
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
A woman’s looseness is a leak. This leaks
Her meaning down in something like beach sand
And spills of her are lost. This looseness speaks
As if she cannot stop and can’t command
Her holes or tongue. But in a man his strict
Demands are utterly opposed to ties.
Adventure is his truth. His quests addict
Him to new conquerings. Those spreading thighs
For ram to batter to surrender make
His masculinity. Explore and search
And speculate are manliness. Each quake
Of climax is his point, each semen lurch.
Romance and opposite of it are always fraught.
He does not have to give this any thought.
~ Phillip Whidden
Ploughing Does Not Need a Conscience
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
For Archibald Whidden, father of ravished Wilma
Romance is not the word, not quite, for man
When driven blood inside his hard hot flesh,
That blood, its fever, makes him need to span
Rejection with harsh certainty, a fresh
Attack against resistance like the heads
Of Hydra. Rape is what he craves if love
Is not equation. With his hands he spreads
The legs, and mounts, and starts to shove
His greed inside. Annihilation sought
Is what he wants if he cannot have male
Regenerated. He will be as naught,
A lost ID, if self does not impale.
He’ll settle for a son but what he needs
Is forceful implantation of his seeds.
~ Phillip Whidden