by phillipw | Jul 17, 2020 | BR, CO, GA, Ho, LO, SP, TH
The Night before Thermopylae— “The Hot Gates” “Phaedrus’s praise for erôs (love) as a precondition for courage employs poetic quotations from poems that in fact state that wisdom is the true precondition, and that erotic passion without thoughtfulness leads to...
by phillipw | May 31, 2020 | BR, CH, CO, DE, Ta
Trinkets The atheistic Charles de Talleyrand Had all the little perquisites a man Could hope for (with the exception of brawn In leg). Whatever his luck didn’t span, The women in his life took action to Correct. The Countess de Brionne...
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...
