by phillipw | Jun 30, 2020 | AL, BY, GE, Ho, IS, JO, KE, LO, WA
Crippled Poets Among the earliest of lines to spring And linger utterly till now are long Ones drawn from blinded eyes. The verses sing Like prophets’ spirits which must see. A song Of guts, the gods, and marrow-spills came out From manly depths behind the...
by phillipw | Jun 24, 2020 | AL, GA, HI, IS
Sacred Incenses The fragrance of the orange groves comes down From paradise, whatever God you know. A Christ, Ganesha—or an Allah frown . . . Yes, even that—must carry with it glow Of perfect redolence from heaven. White Perfection flows out from the...
by phillipw | Jun 19, 2020 | AL, AN, Ho, MA, SC
Imperfection as Perfection Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The eyes are white and wide. They look as spare As Orpheus’s when he lost his wife. Yet Alexander never knew such bare And sand-dune...
by phillipw | Jun 17, 2020 | AL, BA, PA
Instinct and Alexander the Hateful Achilles, after many years of war, And after losing Patroklus to death, Reacted vilely, more like smelly whore Than man of Greek-sky principles. Blue death And anguish overwhelming him like sea Wave, catastrophic, made by monsters,...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | AL, CH, DE, GR, MO, ST
Bitterer than Blue Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse I sleep with one black perfect curl beneath My pillow. It belongs to love. Below My blond, blond head this curl is like a wreath Of mourning. Blackness almost has a...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2020 | AL, ES, GI, LI, SE
Gin as Tonic It moves like hypnotism down the throat, Like fuzzy ecstasies that stroke the tongue Along their way. A beauty soon begins to bloat The brain like sugared peace and mist among The nagging weights, those boring days, the nights Of brownish...