No Matter Where You Bathed

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

No matter where you bathed, the water would

Have turned to gold, a liquid gold that gods

Would know.  Your black dream hair was like a hood,

More like a falling helmet, Satan’s squads

Surrounding it, archangels in the crowd

Not knowing Lucifer had failed, too late

Assaying gilt of locks like his.  A shroud

The curls became, iniquity’s sheer fate

That all could see through, lucid, clear once he

Was dangled in the space between Christ’s throne

And hell.  The beauty still was there like sea

Of crystal set on fire to torture Joan.

  Her hair was burned as well.  Though hers was pure,

    Shrieked “Jesu!” could not bring a tardy cure.

~ Phillip Whidden

by phillipw | Oct 1, 2024 | Uncategorized | 0 comments