by phillipw | Aug 25, 2022 | AS, BL, MU, PH
The Music of the Sphere Known as a Black Hole https://twitter.com/Phoenix22555220/status/1562149765839732740?s=20&t=D3UNCn1z5-0dtrIopqEVRg Beyond the realm of Seven Sisters, sound Reverberates away from total death. The hole That makes this seethe is like a giant...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2022 | AS, BE, BR, MA
Dark Star Boy Slight primness there around his mouth, so slight It’s quite unfair to notice it . . . it makes Him look as if the hulking skies of night Have never interested him. The lakes Of stars in space have never caught his eye. He’s never...
by phillipw | Sep 3, 2021 | AS, FR
Never a Lack of a Target An afterthought of life is death, but frogs Sing always, solely of old age or death. The rest of us allow unwholesome smogs Of daily life to fill our songs. Frogs’ breath Is drawn in only for their threnody, For ours as well...
by phillipw | Aug 2, 2021 | AC, AS
Aspire Past Platinum Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem …… Rise high enough and you will be unseen. Rise high enough and others will not know. Your essence will be lodged...
by phillipw | Aug 2, 2021 | AS, PA, PE, RE, SE
Singing Sacred Ones When things become invisible, they turn To something like the Holy Ghost. They might Come back like torching tongues of fire to burn Above apostles’ hair, or come at night Like floating space ships filled with promise, hope,...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2021 | AS, CH, PH, RE, SC, TH
Yeah, Right “with God all things are possible” ~ Matthew 19:26 A semantics teacher begins his first lecture of the course with this introduction: “In English grammar a double negative produces a positive. In some languages a double negative...
by phillipw | Dec 8, 2020 | AS, FR, GI, GR, ME, RO, SK
Frilly Pleats and Blokes When Greek men dance in unison, their shoes Don’t dance like chorus girls’. Men’s feet, Too large for pretty grace, are like drunk crews Of slack-foot sailors. Men ignore the neat And opt for strength. Approximate stomping Will do. ...
by phillipw | Sep 17, 2020 | AN, AS, GR, HE, JE, PY, TR
Infant Mild and Astyanax, the Son of Hector, Hidden in Hector’s Tomb Our western world begins its dating with The birth of one warm glowing baby. Glow And gilding in the paintings are like myth. They make truth truer. Little foot and toe On manger straw are our...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2020 | AS, FR, LE, SA
Refuse and Refuse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The refuse after war is what he had Become. The refuse after battle with His father but first the trash, the bad Boy, as the refuse after war. ...
by phillipw | Aug 4, 2020 | AS, MA, MO, OP, ST, SU
Compassionless The radiation that we think about Most often is bright light we see. The moon And sun embrace each other as they shout Their opera duet, their brilliance strewn Across the nights and days of bowing we Have always done. The stars have bit parts...
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 | May 18, 2020 | AS, GA, ST
Light Killing Light The Milky Way is one prolonged hot sigh Of birth and life and dying. Whites and blues And yellows, splayed across an iron sky, Explode, implode, imbibe each other, fuse Their destinies together, cannibals Of cousins who mistakenly drift near,...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | AS, CA, CH, ME, NE, PO, SA, ST
“Like Some Clean Beast” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “In the evenings at Streonshalh . . . farm labourers gathered to play the harp and to sing. Caedmon . . . was in the habit of withdrawing to his...
by phillipw | May 5, 2020 | AS
His Imperial Holiness That would-be king Ashoka, he was bad. Before Ashoka turned to mildest love And Buddha kindness, Brutal Boy had To do some grabbing. Kingship was above Him since his eldest brother had the right To take the throne. As luck would have it,...
by phillipw | May 5, 2020 | AS, DE, LO, RO
Ashoka Sees Devi for the First Time He fell in love with Devi in a blink, A fraction of an ancient second. She Was far too beautiful. Who would re-think His chest throb’s pang? The prince could not be free Of her (or love) again, no never, no. He did not ponder for...
by phillipw | May 4, 2020 | AS, GO, RE
Circumsised Sentiment “The famous love story of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala in the Mahabharata…became the theme of Kalidasa’s (c. fourth-fifth centuries CE) play Abhijanashakuntala, which brings love to life in the way that the best drama does. Unluckily,...
by phillipw | May 3, 2020 | AN, AS, HU
Ashokan Amnesia “While the memory of Ashoka having set up stone pillars persisted, what his epigraphs recorded was entirely forgotten. The pillar at Niglihawa, while recognized as Ashokan, is said to have been engraved with “the record of the...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2020 | AS, FR, IN, SA, ST
Intercessory Prayer and St. Francis of Assisi …………. I tried to hide my hands but God was more Manipulative than my ploy. He zapped Around with holy beams. He loved the gore, I guess. He thought that while my mind was rapt In mystic trance...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2020 | AS, RO
The Paltry Importance of Royal Families: Ashoka’s Abhisheka Why mention family in carvings on Your stele, or other unimportant things Like genealogy, your father has gone To be among his ancestors, those kings Not worthy of your note? The high shaped rock...
by phillipw | Apr 7, 2020 | AS
Ashokan Dominance An emperor becomes a convert to Ascetic truth, a truth that speaks decrees Against the slaughter of poor beasts, yes, true To mercy. Soon the ruler starts to seize Adherents in his regal grasp, the nuns And monks in their humility and calm,...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2020 | AS
Astrological Intimations Perhaps we should have been the Gemini And not Aquarians. Aquarians Are watery at best up in the sky. We should have both been harsh barbarians Of love, the pair of us, the twins of lust And not so much of brotherhood. We might Have been...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2020 | AS, BU, CH, JE, SA
Petaled Salvation An emperor or any man must grope His mumbling way if he would go as pure As Buddha or as Christ. The slightest hope Is offered. Jesus holds out just one sure Path forward into holiness. “Go sell All, all you have and give it to the...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AS, NE, ST, SU
Thorn- Żytkow The one who is the heavy star inside Gives gravity to hold together red Intensity. His presence is implied Because the more amorphous one was fed By greed that made the weighty globe suck in The essence of the one in orbit with Him,...
by phillipw | Feb 20, 2020 | AS
Ashoka Insists with Hard Things The Maski iteration edict Maski edict (detail) ~ Wikipedia An emperor gives commands and they are carved In stone a thousand miles away. A bulge Of rock gives overhang defence. Once starved Of contact with him, people now indulge His...
by phillipw | Feb 11, 2020 | AS, BI, LO, RO, ST, TW
SR PW Two stars that give off light unlike the light Of other stars, so different from their rays That creatures on far distant planets, bright As it might be, cannot hope to see our blaze, We circle in our gravity around Each other, close, so close...
by phillipw | Jan 28, 2020 | AS
Diamonds Embroidered on Blue Black Brocade Would beings where eternity has run, Who look and tell Earth’s lights, seeing them In glows of clusters, think that they were sun Configurations or perhaps the hem Of galaxy or constellation light? If such observers were the...
by phillipw | Jan 6, 2020 | AS, AS, GO
I John 1:5 A damask tablecloth embraced by light From candelabra, and a Christmas tree Awake with twinkling, and Diwali night Are tempting us to think that light means glee. John’s God is light but too much brilliance blights: When Moses climbed the...
by phillipw | Dec 17, 2019 | AS
Mild Music of the Spheres …………Ye meaner beauties of the night …………..That poorly satisfy our eyes …………More by your number than your light ……………You common...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | AS, UN
Atoms in Space Infinite lengths beyond the bounds Where stars revolve their little rounds. ~ Isaac Watts We know now that the galaxies are in Their trillions numbered. So, if we compute Uncountable trillions of stars that spin Across the cosmos,...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2019 | AS, Uncategorized
The Earth and Her Moon Photographed From the Oval Orbit of Mercury They spin, the greater and the lesser one — Sweep through the black. Green and blue disappear, Reflecting only whiteness from the sun. They both seem honest, know no sin or fear....
by phillipw | Nov 17, 2019 | AS
Rocklike Truth Across the Eons Ashoka “proclaimed that morality is the only act of fame and glory.” https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/AshokStambhaThailand.jpg ancientorigins.net Ashoka chose to speak. He spoke in stone. The Buddha was his guide. His...