by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | AR, CH, ET, FR
Étude in C Minor, Opus 25 no. 12 with Porphyry Shouts Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Chopin étude rams the room with power, Arpeggios that swamp and swamp, then swamp The purple, pulsing chords,...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2024 | AE, AR, BE, CH, ES, MO, underarm hair
Microbes’ Excretion in the Priests’ Hair Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I ask you, what’s the use of beauty if It’s undermined by nuns and monks at prayer, Their hands unknown to you that have a whiff...
by phillipw | Jun 3, 2023 | AR, AU, JE
Photographs as Conquerors She languishes beyond the portraits made, Aligned above the keyboard and then on Her dressing table. In the one with shade Below the left eye rests a darker dawn Which, if we might have known its meaning first, Would maybe have required...
by phillipw | May 21, 2023 | AP, AR, GR, HA, SE
How Humans Came to Know Themselves “Know thyself.” ~ the pronaos of Apollo’s temple at Delphi Jeremiah 17:9 By juxtaposing paradoxes of Crabbed contradictions ancient Greeks called gods, Greeks learned to know themselves, thus taught that love And...
by phillipw | Apr 23, 2023 | AR, DE, DI, GR, PH, SC, Uncategorized
Figuring Futilely on the Death Date of Shakespeare “But thy eternal summer shall not fade” ~ Sonnet 18 The statue still defies his death or hers Two thousands years or more beyond the grave Or urn of ashes, shaping that prefers The perfect lie that, carving, Greeks...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2023 | AR, BL, MO
Unlike Us Who Shrivel Separately The morning glories Brandish side by side and then They wither, wither. ~ Hokushi (Englished by Phillip Whidden) It is as if the vines and tendrils grow Because some God thinks He has made...
by phillipw | Jan 11, 2023 | AR, KY, OL, SA, SO
Some Things Don’t Need Recollection An old man takes his time to wrap around His sag of flesh the armor. This care’s not Because he fears the fight or battle ground. It’s just because his joints are are stiff and fraught With aches. One younger...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2022 | AR, FA
Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer in Leaves The voice of autumn yet unheard is still, But soon a breeze will turn, become a wind, Become a storm. October spreads a chill, A silence almost sound, or singing thinned By yellow in the leaves of aspens, beech And maples to the...
by phillipw | Jun 14, 2022 | AR, LE, LU, PA, RI, RO, VE
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Lucien Létinois Verlaine’s emotions are too distant, far Removed and cleft from violets of verse He filled French veins with, each line a devoir Of sorrow, since his feelings were as terse As AK-47 rounds. His lines Were written out like blade...
by phillipw | May 30, 2022 | AR, HE, HU, PH, PR
Bright Young Men Know Better The sun god sits in golden light upon A golden throne and sends out golden beams. The robe he wears is purple prinked at dawn With rose gold frets, Greek frets. His presence streams From in his palace in the farthest east, An east beyond...
by phillipw | May 10, 2022 | AR, ED, MI, ST
Love is Empty, Friendship Dead Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Pierrot, a macaroon! I cannot live without a macaroon!” The puppets, dressed in satin, purply, ruffs, And skirts of apple green, cerise...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2022 | AR, CR, CU, EJ, MA, OR, PU, SE, SP, UN, underarm hair, ZE
Cobalt and Amber: Prometheus Daydreaming Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If I could shape the first man, I would make Him cobalt blue, his eyes a Viking blue, His nose a righteous Grecian one to shake...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2022 | AR, PO
Arions Conflated Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you had hooves and mane—and god-made wings— And if you had a voice that let you speak, You might well be a flying horse who...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2022 | AR, CO, JA, ME, PA
Cherubim Etched in Gilding Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Back then world was filled with gold, gold skies. The angels’ wings were tiny, but they flew. Two cherubim in gold attract our...
by phillipw | Jan 14, 2022 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Bleu, Blue, and Black: A Sonnet Sequence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem WARNING: Some of the sonnets in this sequence may be very...
by phillipw | Dec 6, 2021 | AL, AR, GL, HA, IN, QU, WI
Magnanimity: Mourning Gladstone Finally Offers a Peerage to Tennyson and Finally the Mourning Poet Accepts It Arthur Henry Hallam William Ewart Gladstone Alfred, Lord Tennyson Forget the jealousy between two men in love. Forget what beardless envies that in youth...
by phillipw | Sep 7, 2021 | AR, IS, Uncategorized
Conjecture “The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea” ~ Matthew Arnold What Wordsworth felt and wondered rests unknown Against the edges of our minds. We know, Though not completely, what we feel. Alone The soul is and will always...
by phillipw | Jul 11, 2021 | AN, AP, AR, GR, SC
Aegean Immortality Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The eye begins to wonder if the truth About Greek statues is that gods still sleep Within them, living, deep within their youth. The eye looks...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2021 | AR, HE, HI, MA, SE, SM, TH
An Unsuitable Boy His arms are almost prominent in this Pic taken of him at Baringo. They Are hairy but of course the gorgeous Miss Rejected him. Their bedroom play Revealed his back was even hairier And that was more than she could bear. That hair on shoulders...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2021 | AR, CH, ON, PA, PH, RE
Perspective Without perspective we can live in white Infinity, far longer than the space In Leonardo. Chinese painters’ sight Swerves larger like an Orthodox choir’s bass In search of certain formlessness. Their blanks Loom almost misty like...
by phillipw | Jul 4, 2021 | AR, NA, PO
Blush Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Three thousand sonnets, thereabouts, he writes But then three plums with blush and underglow Come into his existence. Smooth skin lights Up...
by phillipw | May 4, 2021 | AR, DA, FA, FE, GE, GR, MA, SE, SO, SP, UN
Armpit and Genital Hair on the Masculine Anima Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The armpit hair of spirits is too dark For women. Females do not like to think Of it or get a glance of it as stark As...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2021 | AR, FR, MO, PO, RI
Rimbaud’s Tiny Kisser Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem …….. It’s worse than that unsmiling mouth implies. It’s more a grimness, executioner Made flesh and teeth. If he were...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2021 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Lacking Almost All Common Sense when Combined…and After that Too Late “Where the white cliffs were ghostlike in the dawn, And after dawn were deathlike.” ~Lancelot, Edwin Arlington Robinson If only Arthur and poor Paul had read Those words by Robinson, they...
by phillipw | Mar 27, 2021 | AE, AL, AR, CA, DE, ES, SO
Libation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Solutrean bison – By Museo de Altamira y D. Rodríguez, CC BY-SA 3.0 I sprinkled my best wine with dust from tombs, Presuming that...
by phillipw | Mar 26, 2021 | AR, GA, MO, PA, RI, VE
Irradiated Irises Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem His eyes were deep clairvoyant blue, and blue Of lighter kind, both present in his face At once for Paul to fall in love with. True To...
by phillipw | Mar 18, 2021 | AR, SO, UN
Sonnets, Unruly and Ruly Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Perhaps he ought to be ashamed that, if You smell the bodies of his sonnets, you Will often get at least the slightest whiff Of rudeness,...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2021 | AE, AR, BA, GR, MO, SH, WA
Simplicity and Complexity The modern Scandinavians and chairs By Shakers have their meaning just because Of life’s complexity. The Cubist squares And glossed rectangularity give pause Like Philip Johnson’s house of cleanest glass. The house by Gropius in Lincoln...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2021 | AB, AE, AR, BE, CU, ES, MO
Picasso! Don’t look at nature after art to slight The art. The point of art is not to ape But thinking. Artists target to incite, Not prettify, but cause the mind to gape. To criticize a painting for a lack Of slavishness to facts is silliness Akin to faulting...
by phillipw | Feb 14, 2021 | AP, AR, DE, LO, LU
Not to Be Eclipsed Artemis and Apollo Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He settles into quietness, a moon That does not give a care about eclipse. He settles into desperate calm, a noon Ruled...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2021 | AE, AR, BE, EN, ES, MO, NA, PE, SA
No Divisions Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Tokonama no Botan no yami ya Hototogisu ~ Shiki The darkness of the alcove Where the peonies are; A hototogisu...
by phillipw | Dec 20, 2020 | AR, BE, CO, IM, LU, RO
Hearing Deafly Romantics are like oceans, deep, disturbed, And wide. Unfathomed parts of them require Attention for this art. Their depths, perturbed Like Christ’s Bethesda or by coal mines’ fire, Impact the darkness and are meant to treat Our...
by phillipw | Dec 7, 2020 | AN, AR, CA, DR, FA, GA, LU, PR
Gabriel or Lucifer? My cat is like an angel when he dreams, An angel from the furry realms of God. It is as if he more than merely seems To be archangel-like, a cat who’s awed By holy visions twitching in his paws, And lies angelic in his twitching calm. His...
by phillipw | Nov 27, 2020 | AR, GA, HE, Ho, LO, MA, PA, RI, ST, UN, VE
Wedded Love vs. Armpit Stench Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Romances sans Paroles (by Verlaine) has a “consistently high standard … and reflects his troubled emotional state over the rupture...
by phillipw | Nov 23, 2020 | AR, GA, Ho, PA, RI, SA, SE, VE
LONG YEARS Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “You can be free only with me, and I swear to you I will behave in the future. I am sorry for my part in the wrong. My mind is clear at last. ...
by phillipw | Nov 15, 2020 | AR, GA, Ho, LO, PA, RI, RO, SE, SN, VE
Éclats de Neige Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “éclats de neige”~ Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations Paul often thought a boy has splinters in His eyes, his irises, his pupils, light...
by phillipw | Nov 14, 2020 | AR, BA, IR
Bāneh The Zagros Mountains hold the city near In beauty. In the sun it opens like A sunflower, bright and rich. In winter clear Light shows the buildings. Snow-sped sunbeams strike It into greater loveliness beneath Ice peaks. In spring...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2020 | AR, CH, DE, MO, PA, ST, WE
Painting as False Prophet in Acrylic Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The image in the bedroom looks out through The window, artwork gazing out As if a seer. It does not see blue Of...
by phillipw | Jul 29, 2020 | AR, AS, AV, BI, CO, MI, ST
Occult Forces Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Blue bioluminescent gardens guide Credit: Kris Williams To shore some birds which otherwise might die. The currents and the winds make creatures...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AN, AR, DE, DO, IM, JE, MU, OL, OR, PI, PO
Πιερία Pieria Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Pieria was laid with plains and peaks, The highest one Olympus, when the gods Set forth the world. Poseidon’s seashore speaks And gives...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AE, AG, AR, BE, ES, MA, PR, TR
Upon the Face of Agamemnon “and also he [King Priam of Troy] admires Agamemnon for his beauty” ~ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XIII, 906 Forget that Helen for a moment. Think Of gorgeous men. The King of Troy could not Resist men’s beauty. Helen caused a stink That...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | AD, AE, AL, AR, BO, LO, PA, PH, RO, SE
The Venerable, Ancient Need Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “And Socrates the philosopher, who despised everything, was, for all that, subdued by the beauty of Alcibiades; as also was the venerable...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | AR, HE, Ho, NA, PH, PL, PO, XE
The Truth about Ancient History, Plato, and Poetry “Socrates says in the Republic that he and Plato’s brothers might have to inform poetry about the ancient quarrel between it and philosophy. Glenn Most (“What Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry?”) argues...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | AR, GE
The Desert and Dementia “that fragmented legacy of ideas and figures, stories and histories which can be as real to us as our own more immediate past” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets The Oxyrhynchus Papyri were trapped In desert sands for half a million nights And...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | AR, IN, MU, NO, PA, PO, TI, TS
Piéria Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “the Muses’ ancient home between the roots of Olympus and the sea; to where ‘Pēneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star’.” ~ F. L....
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AR, PL, PO
Oracular, or Delphi at its Worst* In Homer’s time no word existed for Art. Praxitiles and Sappho had no term For it. The Greeks had not even the spore Of such a word, so Plato spoke no firm Ideals about that thing which we call art. He had too much, perhaps, to say...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AM, AN, AR, MA, MU, PO, ST
Music, Poetry, and Architecture, All from Mathematics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The poet Amphion rebuilt the streets And temples, houses, and the stoa of The ruined Cadmeia. His lyric beats Were...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AN, AR, BA, WA
Metallic Heroes Did not Dare to Turn their Backs Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Bronze swords, and shields, and helmets with their crests They wore while slicing men with wounds and death....
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | AR, ET, MO
Ancient Art Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “the ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of aesthetics in our time” ~ Leo Tolstoy A moral pillar rises from...
by phillipw | Jul 3, 2020 | AL, AR, CH, 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 17, 2020 | AR, IT, OD, PE, TE
Ithaca ( Ἰθάκη), the Dull Town Your wife is there, your two-balled heir, and hound Still true (like bone to brawn) behind his eyes Destroyed with cataracts—but his snout’s bound To ravel your armpit; he’s the surprise That isn’t surprising when you return Among the...
by phillipw | Jun 15, 2020 | AR
Ars Poetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | AN, AR
Classic Clarity Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse Who’d want to read the ancient poets, myth And tales, because of facts? Aegean blue And empty temples, ancient grave sites with A beaten gold mask may be facts and true,...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2020 | AR, BL, CH, EA, HA, HE, Ho, MA, WA, WH
Backside Gas in that Jar Called Yale One Harold Bloom says modern verse began In 1890—or about then. That Is what one venerating friend claims. Can That be? Only an academic prat Could be so arrogant and blinkered. I Say modern verse began at least as far Back...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2020 | AR, FR, GE, GH
Smooth Contours are the Best Smooth contours are the best things in the world, The universe in fact. Who wants the straight When you can have the circular, the curled, The bent and curved? That box would be a crate (The Taj Mahal) without its graceful domes. If...
by phillipw | May 28, 2020 | AR, BI, CA, CH, DU, FR, MA, RA, Ta
Feline Thoughts on Pedigree The English, as usual not nonplussed By foreign aristocracy, impressed No, not at all by noble, upper crust, Unbishoped Talleyrand, were not hard pressed To sneer at Duc de Biron. After all, Detesting frog and wog, Brits would snigger At...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | AR, CH, HU, MO, PR
A Common Prayer for Honesty Psalm 52:1 ‘an anthem in five parts, “Why boasteth thou thyself,” the second section adding a solo quartet, making a good nine-part work (1865).’ ~ Emily Daymond This criticism of himself becomes The context of his later anthem, “Why...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | AR, FO, HE, LO, PH, PR, QU
Arcachon, Summer, 1923, White-Blond Hair “quite too adorable for words, a perfect pet, so grown up & speaks quite a lot & uses grand phrases. He is the sturdiest little boy I have ever seen & I can’t say he is spoilt.’ ~ Louise, Queen of Sweden,...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | AR, GA, HE, Ho, HY, JA, JO, LE, ST
Herakles, the Greatest Greek Hero, Outshone His Junior, Jason (a Bright Star), in All Majestic Ways John Keats perverts the “bright star” image. First An ancient poet wrote that Jason shone, “A bright star,” such as one that brides would thirst For, brides-to-be,...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, DI, GO, PR, UN
Imagine How Much Like a Man’s Shaved Armpit Allah Would be without Mohammad Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem No matter who the god is, he needs men To help. He needs the prophets to deploy Their fiery...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, DE, GA, Ho, PA, PH, PO, RI, SA, VE
Verlaine Agonistes “for me Rimbaud is an ever-living reality, a sun aflame within me, a sun that will not suffer eclipse” ~ Paul Verlaine long after Arthur’s death The Philistines bored out the strongman’s eyes With iron-cold...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, OS, RI, WI
Each Autre Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Four days apart their births and just a few Miles separating them, these two young men, Though geniuses, were destined not to screw Each other. ...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, OS, PA, RI, VE, WI
A Found Sonnet: Blue and Black Gemstones Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “I cannot accept this death. It’s been some Years now since we’ve seen each other. Rimbaud, Though (Arthur’s art and face),...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Four Hundred and Twenty Some Odd Days Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When genius lived in London, English brains Were unaware. When genius loved among Them, drinking gin is what they did. The...
by phillipw | May 19, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Narrow Rooms It started in a room made narrow by Paul’s Belle-mère. Lice-filled Arthur bailed from this Before the bourgeois ones could make him fly At their command. He fled to the abyss, The alleyed chasm of streetlife. When Paul Found Rimbaud after...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AR, BE, BR, DE, JE, PH
Jeanette Black and White Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Her eyes cast down as if ashamed of style And beauty, she is captured. She is held Forever in the falseness. All the while This image has...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AR, DO, IV, PH, WH, WO
Under the Florida Son On Wilson’s first Inaugural Day A “man” was born. His father always called Him “Man.” For instance, Archibald might say, “Go do your hunting, Man.” Archie’d been galled To have so many females in his life, Was thrilled to have...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | AL, AR, MA
Like Algae-covered Art Attempting to Create Immortality Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | AN, AR, BA, SC
Tanagra: the Lady in Blue (Dame en bleu) Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem As stiff as any well-dressed Barbie doll This sculpture from the time before the age Of Alexander’s conquering, the small...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | AR, IN, MU
The Vanishing Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A perfect poem that a poet knew (Or nearly knew) attempted to escape From in his ribs and mind. It almost grew. He got a glimpse of it, its shining...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | AR, MO, PA
Art Why photograph a fact when you can catch A nightmare, be a Jackson Pollock or A Dalí at his Druid weirdest? Snatch A depth of fanged subconscious and then pour Some paint of guts across your canvas. Real Is boring. Ditch it. Art becomes mirage...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | AN, AR, CH, HE, LO, PA, SE
Lucifer and the Other Multi-winged Ones, Seraphim and Cherubim “The deep lunges, forehead pressed to forehead, witnesses to rise and fall of chest and ever expanding wings.” ~ Jaime Mathis, “Blood Blister,” It Rises and Falls Those angels making love before the fall,...
by phillipw | May 9, 2020 | AD, AN, AP, AR, HE, IN, MA, MY, SE, VE, VU
Primitive Sophisticated Truth Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem ….…… When Greeks believed that nature’s aspects moved As gods and goddesses, as wind and fire, Then Bóreas came...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | AR, BO, HA, UN
Hairy Happiness The woman watches him. He’s at the sink Inside their hotel room. She notes his arms And shoulders most. She thinks of manly stink In black-haired armpits, glossy in the harms They do to heart and guts as she succumbs. He’s washing them with water...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | AR, VU
Fake Views Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem It’s funny how they build a false façade. A pretty, add on semi-circle crowns The church. The shape is lovely, but it’s odd: They make a fake front beauty...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | AR, DE, LO, PO, RI
Veiled as for a Funeral, Not a Wedding We have that face. We have those written lines. It’s difficult to say just which is more Poetic, hero doomed by death’s designs, Or poetry abandoned by the whore, That smelly adolescent. Words obscure The meanings and the edges...
by phillipw | May 3, 2020 | AR, CO, PO
Formal Poetry against Free Verse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Plato in “inventing some extraordinarily powerful images of his own” came up with “notably the poet as Corybant”. ~ Penelope Murray,...
by phillipw | May 2, 2020 | AR, DA, NA, PR
Appearances I go to choral evensong and sit In regal beauty in the queen’s own free Saint George’s Chapel. I have used my spit To cut the pain a corn has caused to me When I put on my snakeskin shoes, the blue ………. Ones, Hugo Boss. ...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AR, ID
Watered Down Wine and Esthetics “Gretchen Reydams-Shils (“Myth and Poetry in the Timaeus”) deals with Socrates’ puzzling remark that his description of an ideal state was like a painting.” ~ http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/ Socrates’...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AR, PL, PO
Widescreen, 3D, Surround Sound Buttered Popcorn and Icy Coca-Cola® “It follows from the fact that poets do not have knowledge of that about which they speak, but aim to seem as though they do, and some listeners do not realize that poets lack knowledge.” ~...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AR
Oracular, or Delphi at its Worst* In Homer’s time, no word existed for Art. Praxiteles and Sappho had no term For it. The Greeks had not even the spore Of such a word, so Plato spoke no firm Ideals about that thing which we call art. He had too much, perhaps, to say...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | AR, CO, PA
A Long, Long Way from classical Greece at the Bottom of the Indian Ocean I’m curious about what women peek At as the men fixate on tits. Do gals Examine buttocks and their swollen, sleek Bronze dullness? Are women’s, visual pals The bulging abs or maybe hulking...
by phillipw | Mar 30, 2020 | AN, AR, GR
Broad Marble Guidance Appropriating what we want from Greece Of centuries long, long past, we take the things We find uplifting. Statues white as peace Are chosen. Hermes lifts us up with wings That grow from swiftest feet. His beauty speeds Us up tabove...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2020 | AR
Trinkets When artefacts are placed in galleries, Museums, or the other places where They linger, what cultured calories Exactly do we get from them? The spare Particulars we have about them tease Us more than tell us fully what we want. They are like...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2020 | AR, MO
Déja Do you remember when a piece of art Held truth or meaning in its oil or stone— And beauty even? Paintings would impart Aesthetic truth and not just some sweet tone Of glowing like a Rothko, luminous But void like Close Encounters of the Third...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2020 | AR, PO, RI, VE
Absinthe-minded Charlatan “The most curious thing about the transformation of the sensorial apparatus—the phenomenon, at least, that struck me most forcibly in the experiments I conducted on myself— is that all sensations are perceived by all senses at...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2020 | AR, LO, PA, RI, RO, VE
What Kind of Place is Fit for Men? …………“L’allée est sans fin” ~ Paul Verlaine What kind of place is fit for hommes who want To make a London nest together, one Where poetry is brooded, a romaunt Perhaps, or maybe some...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, SA, VE
“Operating Live on Poetry” —Delahaye in Divagations So. Just another boozing, druggy day. That’s how French poets’ love affairs are spent. They sit with friends in an ivre café, And Rimbaud says, “Try an experiment, Hommes. Put your hands on the table.” ...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Narrow Rooms It started in a room made narrow by Paul’s Belle-mère. Lice-doomed Arthur bailed from this Before the bourgeois ones could make him fly At their command. He fled to the abyss, The alleyed chasm of streetlife. When Paul Found Rimbaud after...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2020 | AR, LO, RI, VE
What We Learn in the Great College Street of Knowledge The worst conclusion to a crimson bout Of love is truth. We sniff the smell of facts And they are ugly mumbles. With his snout The poet gets the scent. His heart reacts Like pack hounds to the trail a cognac fox...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Rimbaud in Camden “an angel in exile” ~ Paul Verlaine Imagine then an exiled angel. How Would he appear, this creature, if he were More real than metaphor? His lids would bow Down over such blue eyes with eyelash fur That azure would become...
by phillipw | Mar 2, 2020 | AE, AR, ES, PO
The Lost One “Master Alfred de Musset says great artists … belong to space, to the universe, to anything infinite.” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan I could not give an outline of him, for how Could I begin, or end? A paradox Is all that could...
by phillipw | Mar 2, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Canines Having Trouble Disengaging “A kid Casanova, but even more so a certified expert in love-affairs, doesn’t he laugh with his flaring nostrils and his handsome dimpled chin … ?” ~ Paul Verlaine, Les Poètes Maudits ………. Promiscuous in...
by phillipw | Mar 1, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Sweetly Bitter Mouth at Sixteen Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Sublime this child with lips which long have been As sensual as ancient memories, eyes So lost in gold mythologies that twin To Lucifer...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2020 | AR, LO, PA, RI, RO, VE
The Products of Love’s Smog The older poet dreamed perhaps of past Emotions with the younger one (of France And beds), dreamed, dreamed in daylight and the last Night hour as wakefulness began to prance Across subconsciousness of London’s dawn. The elder man created...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2020 | AR, DE, LO, PA, RI, RO, VE
HMS Implacable “Because you loved me as it had to be.” ~ Paul Verlaine in “To Arthur Rimbaud” We love the thought of love and fate combined. We love the grand idea that lust is out Of our control like earthquakes. Disinclined To...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AR, RI
Under the Sign of the Scorpions: Teachers as Consummate Astrologers A teacher in Rimbaud’s third year of school, M. Pérette, remarked, “Intelligent, as much as you want, but he has eyes and a smile that I do not like. He will come to a bad end. In any case,...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Marriage Proposal Proposal: To exhume the bodies of Two poets, Arthur Rimbaud and Verlaine, And re-entomb them with the one above The other in a common grave—two men Together once again and once again, Forever, one on top. The digging will Be done in...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AR, LO, PA, RI, VE
The Shining While Arthur wears a top hat, Paul has shoes Shined—nothing here of poetry. A pipe Pollutes the air, unpoetically. Booze Bridgeman Art Library Ain’t that poetic either, both guys ripe With body odor. Try to write some verse With...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
A Sentimental Conversation Rambunctiousness invaded Paris for A while when Rimbaud arrived, an army Of one belligerent. Soul of a whore And manners of a rapist of the smarmy Bourgeoisie made him a Communard of Less than a year’s time there. Arthur ran Away to...