The Featherless Singing Phoenix

       The Featherless Singing Phoenix

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

If he were tall and baritone, perhaps

Your heart would grow the ears to hear his soul,

But as things are he hears your interest lapse.

If he were muscled as the oversoul

Of sex in bass clef meaning, maybe you

Would listen to his serenade in dawns

Of Spain.  Beneath your balcony his cue

Of melody would banish unwashed yawns.

His sonnets and his villanelles he sings

Would pierce your core the way a man desires.

Your inner parts would feel the flapping wings

Of desperation from his feebled fires.

  But he is feeble, short.  His biceps slim

    To tubes in you so they turn dry and dim.

Phillip Whidden