by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | BR, CH, ED, HI, Ho, HU, MU, PA
Holy Innocence We wonder if the organist who spelled Out basic counterpoint and how to write Down harmony knew that this later swelled To eight-part glory in a music bright As heaven’s capital with streets of gold And gem foundations. Highnam’s Edward...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | AC, BR, KN, RA
Jerusalem His face is mild, as mild as Elgar chords Set down on paper, or a late June day In Gloucestershire, as mild as sleeping lords In Parliament. His young beard’s a display Of masculinity, or maybe just A statement of his academic bent....
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | BR, LU, MA
Luther Resurrected and Improved He looks a bit like Luther must have looked When he was young, his mouth a little sad, His nose, though cute and certainly not hooked, Considerably turned up and just a tad Too short and narrow to transpose to Seriousness of ordered,...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | BR, UN, WE
Sterile I throw my rice on you, small handfuls of White wishes with husks rubbed off. Grains catch there In your hair, a few, the ones that know love And its meaninglessness. That’s what they share With God, that clinging whiteness and a...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | BR, CO, MA, RA, SY
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 | May 20, 2020 | BE, BR, EA, MA, RA, WA
Death Defied in the British Library I sit across from Wayne, but decades on And much improved. Not only young again, But cuter nose, and lips more cushion drawn, More velvet-shaped—too lovely, these, to deign To pray or sing a Sabbath verse. The hair Is lovely,...
