by phillipw | Aug 23, 2019 | BE, SW
Consider How the Swan Lifts Up His Wings Consider how the swan lifts up his wings Above his pinion shape while gliding on The River Thames at Windsor. Athelings Were never quite so handsome in the dawn Of England’s whiteless history (so full Of scarlet...
by phillipw | Aug 19, 2019 | AE, AN, BE, DI, ES, GR
Contemplation and Adoration He seems contemplative, his shadowed face So meditative that his beauty turns Away from us. He seems to fill more space Than marble ever could. His presence burns Through thousands of male years. The darkness all Around him is defeated. ...
by phillipw | Aug 14, 2019 | AE, BE, ES, GR
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord Beauty The ancient Greeks loved beauty, all its forms. Men prized the patterns that enquiring minds Discovered, loving it because it warms The brain and body, loving curved behinds Marble statue of the Three Graces Metropolitan Museum of Art,...
by phillipw | Jul 30, 2019 | BE
A Tenor in the Choir [there are three alternatives for the last line . . .] His face is like a student I once taught; Not just the pupil’s eyes, the brightness, too, And humor in the face, with freckles fraught, A gratifying galaxy, a slew Of them across his...
by phillipw | Jul 29, 2019 | BE
Musical Rightness in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room The space between his eyebrows is so wide It might contain nine symphonies, and all The works of Mozart, or the whole deep tide Of oceans that we label music. Tall Conceptions captured in long swelling bars...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2019 | BE
Virgins in Self-sacrificial Auto da Fé “His ‘magic’ does not take account of what cannot be known.”* His beauty does not care Who worships it with fragrantly white-hot Devotion at a burning altar where Our ribs are offered up as incense to The...
