Worse than Dido
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
He never quite got over it, not quite,
Because he never had it. Like a ghost
That never had a body, he stalked night,
Or worse he was the victim of the most
Egregious practices of ancient sky
Abandonment, of leaving corpses out
For scavengers like vultures. Some don’t die;
Their purgatory is a realm without
Escape. They love the suffered carries on
And never finds its way to death. They moan
Without a throat in places where no dawn
Appears. Each floats, a featherless mute swan.
Because they never got the thing they want,
The cosmos serenades them with a taunt.
~ Phillip Whidden