by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | AC, AU, NO, PA
Metaphysical Meteorology The dead surround us like a Northern Lights Display above blue waters, seas as blue As Patroclus’s eyes in tented nights Beside Achilles making love as new And strong as sapphire blades, above the green Of greenest waters, greener than the...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, GA, Ho, MA, PA
Beside the Thousand Ships There once were times when men could hold large pride In having sons who had as lovers men That gods could hate and love — and take their side In gut-strewn battle. Fathers nodded when Their sons retired to tents and to the love Of those...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, AN, HE, PA, TR
Two Men in Love in Death Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Hector dies, and when at last in Book XXIV his corpse is recovered, it is laid out and Andromache holds Hector’s head in her lap,...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, BO, BR, CA, CR, GA, HA, HE, KA, MA, NE, PA, PR, SA
Troy in New Orleans, Manhattan, or London Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem So I found “Helen” sitting in a streetcar; the Dionysian revels of her court were transferred to a Metropolitan roof garden...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, AG, DE, IM, PA, SC, TH
To the King of Greece The past attempts to speak. It tries to talk With words and other ruined things like stones That lie in heaps or carved acanthus stalk Of leaves in marble. Sometimes vellum tones Come up from opened scrolls. Occasionally Our history gives...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | AC, AL, MA, TE
The Truth The ancient Greeks are there. They do not hide The truth about themselves like holy priests Of papal Rome. The Greeks adored male pride And loathed it. They were not pure logic’s beasts: They gloried in their contradictions, found Them not...
