Licentiousness

            Licentiousness

Conceived as art or prophecy, a dream

Of seers, poetry is jailed.  It must

Be free.  It must be able to redeem

A broken tea cup and to kiss the mussed

Coiffure of Marilyn before she dies

Of blonde indifference in a clutch of pills.

The poet finds a way to go past sighs,

To reach past Hemingway and gasping gills.

A poem doesn’t want philosophy.

The poem aims for greater things like tongues

That need your spit to find them, yes, to free

Them from their marriage into passion’s lungs.

  A sonnet yearns to vomit past pink love

    And urges forward to a raping shove.

Phillip Whidden