by phillipw | Dec 21, 2020 | AU, BL, CL, FA, PE, PU, SI
Physics and Metaphysics Clean Water and Black Hole Scars Shizukasa wa kuri no ha shizumu shimizu kana The quietness; A chestnut leaf sinks Through the clear water. ~Shōhaku The simple, clear, transparent, and the pure Are summed up in the...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2020 | BL, BR, DE, GA, Ho, HU, JE, LE, MO, UN
The Song for the Statue of Liberty Sing out your foreign song. Sing out your truth. Sing out the way that you are different from The rest. Chant out from in your Succoth booth Or from your monastery. Let songs come From pink brown Harlem lips. Involve the...
by phillipw | Sep 9, 2020 | BL, CH, GR, LO, ST
Love Divine, All Loves Expelling When you were killed by lightning (yes, by God Himself—Herself, perhaps), voltage struck The Shenandoah River where that odd Thing, God’s strange love, took Charles. It ran amok That afternoon beneath the blackened sky, That bleak...
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 | May 26, 2020 | BL, CH, HU, MU, PA, SA, WE
Inklings “We hear of his composing chants and hymn-tunes when he was about eight”. Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1928), 55 Some chants and melodies for hymns at eight Gave childhood hints, yet first among the strong To forge him...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | BL, EN, GR, PE, PO, SC, SH, TE, WI
Poets Are the Legislators of the Scientific World In 2011 I was reading a biography of John Keats. In the introduction Lord Byron is quoted as saying that Keats "belonged to that second-hand school of poetry" because he got his inspiration from...
