by phillipw | Apr 19, 2024 | CH, CR, RE, RO, TH
Gargoyles Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The gargoyles were created to display Some truth and not to ward off evil things. Perhaps grotesques were fashioned to betray The evils of the Church, the...
by phillipw | Mar 26, 2024 | BO, CH
The Boy Jesus When Not Working in the Carpenter Shop Unthinking grace is like a child at play. The hummingbird in hover, April flight, Does not consider gracefulness in sway Of gorgeousness or whether beauty’s height Is being skated through the blossom air. The cat...
by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | AR, CH, ET, FR
Étude in C Minor, Opus 25 no. 12 with Porphyry Shouts Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Chopin étude rams the room with power, Arpeggios that swamp and swamp, then swamp The purple, pulsing chords,...
by phillipw | Feb 22, 2024 | CH, ST
The Pleiades and the Church of the Savior Bing Videos When he has died, perfection throbs through all, Not just through him but also through a height Complete, distilled, sublimed. An Everest tall With peak of ice both see-through and pure white Like heaven’s...
by phillipw | Feb 22, 2024 | CH, ST, Uncategorized
For Charles Randall Stanfield on 71st His Birthday Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If suns were smog and smog were suns, if fog Were clean and bright yet suns’ corona’s dim Like haar, if deserts’ sun...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2024 | CH, FR, MA, ST
“One Soul in Bodies Twain” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Seventh Type of Ambiguity ~ William Empson A single photon passes through two slits At once, impossible, yet not quite so. The quantum...
by phillipw | Jan 29, 2024 | CH, FO, HE, ME, SA, UN
No, Not Really The Christ will not ascend to heaven while One sinner screams in hell or close His gates. This absolute is known, or, if not, vile That Gospel truth of love since hellfire waits Forever and forever forcing God, Omniscient, to feel the...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2024 | AE, AR, BE, CH, ES, MO, underarm hair
Microbes’ Excretion in the Priests’ Hair Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I ask you, what’s the use of beauty if It’s undermined by nuns and monks at prayer, Their hands unknown to you that have a whiff...
by phillipw | Dec 24, 2023 | BU, CH, GR, TO
Frankincense Thrones “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying . . .” ~ Luke 2:13 A spoken hymn it was — not sung. They spoke, Those angels, spoke those words, spoke far above Mere music. Right...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2023 | CH, FO, SE
Deceived Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Long past, when souls were young, yes, even souls And never mind our bodies, packaged truth Was taught to us in Bible class. Controls...
by phillipw | Nov 5, 2023 | BL, CH, ST, UN, WI
Not Holy Enough my Bow He gave to me the end of this, a string Of gold. I tried to make it endless, pure. His love of Heaven’s white hot God might sing Perfection. Love like that, though, could not cure His sickness. My affection also could Not heal...
by phillipw | Oct 18, 2023 | CE, CH, OC, SQ
Single-hearted like Humans Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem chambered nautilus images – Bing images Jeremiah 17:9 The chambered nautilus unlike its kin, The octopus and squid, has just one...
by phillipw | Oct 14, 2023 | CH, LO, MO, Uncategorized
More Lovely than a Golden Spiral Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The chambered nautilus propels his shell Through nighttime waves. He sails much longer than His cousins, octopus and squid. The swell...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2023 | CH, LO, RO, UN, Uncategorized
Wide and Narrow in Their Fate Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Aurora borealis touches dreams Of men and poets as they wander through The realm of loving, hopeful planetary streams Of matter from the...
by phillipw | Aug 21, 2023 | CH, DE, ST
Tiny or Immense, Who Cares? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The hope we need at break of day waits, small, And does not have to be as large as sky And cosmos in the blue, but only tall Enough for each...
by phillipw | May 29, 2023 | CH
Sacrilege Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Philippians 4:7 The Choral Evensong on BBC’s Chaste programme had a hallowed Slavic tone To it. The anthem carried on its breeze The self of...
by phillipw | May 28, 2023 | CH, MA, ST, Uncategorized, WH
E-scrapbooks of Holiness Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The images consulted most are those Of love, well, lovers. Highest in the search Are photographs where we and lovers pose. Clichés count...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2023 | CH, MA, Uncategorized
More Sacred than a Spiritual Crocus A blossom holds more steady than the flare Above a candle in the air of night. As steady as a young nun’s golden prayer Before the altar, yellow blossom’s height Is reaching up for God or higher to Agape love itself...
by phillipw | Jan 17, 2023 | CH
Like a Qilin’s Feathers The childishness of Chinese girls and boys Is lighter than their hair or eyes, as light As silk in poems, lighter than their toys Like kites uplifted by a breeze, their flight On April gusts. The Chinese children’s dreams...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2023 | CH
The Pink-cloud Morning These branches first saw April air before They saw the buds and cherry blossoms. Bare They looked upon March winds which barks ignore. Inside of those wrapped hard is pink aware Of promise and fulfilment. Later years Will show them...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2023 | CH, DE, TO
Communion Under the cherry Blooms there is no one who is An utter stranger. ~ Issa, Englished by Phillip Whidden Some circumstances turn us all to friends Or bring us closer than stray strangers set Apart. The pinkness arching...
by phillipw | Jan 5, 2023 | CH, DI, GO
Compassion “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” Matthew 10:29 Compassion is a tearless grief, an eye Like God’s. How else could He survive? He sees And...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2022 | CH, DR, MA, MY, WH
Modesty’s Refinement from a Winter’s Afternoon The curtains in the bedroom at the front Were Margaret’s last and accidental gift To me. Before their hanging day, death’s stunt Destroyed her. She was sucked right through that rift...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2022 | CH, ST
Disaster More Likely than Not A loved one with catastrophe inside His hair made up of crow-like black of curls, Disaster in the shine of eyes a bride Would die for, semen like the off-white pearls That naughty gods might drip when they forsake The ones that...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2022 | CH, GO, LA, NA, SA
The Lamb “And suddenly there was with the angel a heavenly host saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” ~ Luke 2:14 The lamb looks up and sees a light, a star Or something heavenly, a...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2022 | CH, FA, GI, MA
Marilyn Monroe’s Father, Charles Stanley Gifford Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He’s obviously an alien. Just look At him and then at her. The evil shows Despite the camera and the way it took Him at...
by phillipw | Oct 17, 2022 | CH, ME, SA
Etudes and Sounds as Frozen Colors Echo from the Stone So let your left hand play your melody. Shake hair above the keyboard and the rules. Fill twilight holy air. Let music be The sacrament (in aisles) spilled out like jewels A ghost remembers, or the calving ice,...
by phillipw | Aug 20, 2022 | CH, DE
Cherry Petals and Bronze The temple bell resounds right through the white Of cherry blossoms making them more pale, Transparent almost. They become more slight. The sound rings sacred, making them a veil For death since April clothes herself in doom. Their...
by phillipw | May 9, 2022 | CH, HA, JA, PO
Burden Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem All the cherry blooms I saw today have become A pink load on me. ~ Sobaku [freely and unfreely paraphrased by Whidden] Sobaku’s postscript to his painitng...
by phillipw | May 1, 2022 | CH, GE, JE, Uncategorized
“The Very Stones Will Cry Out” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Contemplative are agates, geodes too, And also quartz within them. All are filled With meditation colored with the blue Of...
by phillipw | Apr 28, 2022 | CH, JE
“The Universe, the Mind of God” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The leech that falls from trees in Nippon sucks From animals and humans blood. This leech Falls down and finds the flesh and then...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2022 | CH, FI, LO, SE, ST, UN
April, August, Autumn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We both flirt April with each other, you And I, at first. The clouds, if any, rise In white and seem not tinged except with blue, Perhaps...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, CH, GA, Ho, LA, LO, RU
Wider Still and Wider from the Earth “And in that Heaven of all their wish, there shall be no more land, say fish.” ~ Rupert Brooke The fancies of that young one, Rupert Brooke, Were wider than “just” girls and women. He Liked those—and more. The autumn hair that...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, CH, LA, LO, RU, UN
The Genius of Love and the Jock Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Of course it doesn’t matter that we don’t Know just how beautiful Lascelles was: he Was not a poet. Rupert Brooke was wont To think...
by phillipw | Mar 14, 2022 | BR, CH, LA, LO, RU
Squares and Triangles “male society, cloistered rooms, and the works of the classics” ~ Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolfe A cloistered room can be concocted in An ordinary bedsit. Cambridge rooms Are not required. You sit and rest your chin On loneliness. Love’s...
by phillipw | Mar 14, 2022 | BR, CH, GA, LA, LO, RU, UN
Rugby Love Reduced to Black and White in Cambridge Love That love continued into Cambridge days. One Rugby beauty took another in A frame and kept him in his room to gaze At eyes, at stalwart auburn hair, and chin, Not just in daytime, either, but in nights Of...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2022 | BE, BR, CH, LA, MA, RU
No Need for Mary Magdalene: Robin Lane Fox Reports that One Ancient Source Claimed that Alexander the Great’s Natural Body Odor was Like Perfume The beauty whom we cannot see through years And shrouds of time is one we have no chance Of seeing photos of. Lascelles...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2022 | BR, CH, LA, RU, UN
Etched Joys, Wretched Joys “Rugby is full of dreary ghosts of dead hopes and remembered joys” ~ Rupert Brooke Lascelles was more than just another love For Rupert. Charles was Rupert’s first love, more Like God’s own “Fiat lux” while high above The chaos of...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2022 | CH, PH, WH
Ultraterrestrial Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem My brothers’ lives are alien and far Away from mine. The wives float, quite . . . unknown . . . Along with foreign things like...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2022 | BR, CH, FO, GA, LA
Charles Lascelles Remembered Imagine that an English boy loved you The most of all — and everyone thought he Was gorgeous…even straight men took the view That he was stunning. Reckon that a scree Of years goes tumbling by and both are gone, Both...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2022 | BE, BR, CH, MA
Auburn Love Maleness Maleness Maleness The way a twilight in the autumn turns To unsung colors, so the chapel light Inside the service changes from the burns Of orange to a brown with red so slight It slinks away as suns go down. The red Is almost memory, not real,...
by phillipw | Feb 23, 2022 | CH, ST
After the Storm the Council Chopped Up the Birch Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Quite like that birch tree on the nearby green, Chuck stood both tall and slim, and black and white. He leaned a bit...
by phillipw | Feb 21, 2022 | CH, JU, RE, RI, SO
Inner, not Outer Rightness 12 Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them … , with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and...
by phillipw | Feb 20, 2022 | CH, FR, PE, QU, RE
Live Aid Because God has Allowed Famine in Ethiopia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem All things work together for good ~ Romans 8:28 The congregation raises hands and wrists In Christ Church,...
by phillipw | Jan 16, 2022 | CH, DE, LO, RO, ST
Laid Asleep “we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul.” ~ William Wordsworth If laid asleep beside each other, we Might find some rest at last. We never laid In doubled love. Love’s serendipity Was...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2022 | CH, JE, PA
“Tarry,” is Spring’s Command Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. Matthew 25:13 Yet if we grieve, the spring that blossoms will Not come as wishes quick or slow will leap. The grief of spring will hasten just...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2021 | CH, GR, MO, Uncategorized
Archangels in the Moon Garden on Christmas Morn The flowers in whitest rows set forth their white Perfume beside the Great Rift Valley on The day that Christ was born. A rose’s might Is all that they can muster in this dawn Of Kenya. That is strong enough,...
by phillipw | Dec 11, 2021 | CH
Dim and Not Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He carries one white candle in the space Beneath the temple vaults. He has to hold His hand in front of it, so just a trace Of light...
by phillipw | Dec 5, 2021 | CH, DA, PL, Uncategorized
Blackness Stained to White and Pink Each dawn will come now From the white plum blossoms on Branches of black trees. ~ December 4 2021 Where dawns derive from has been falsified By scientists. They say it’s from the sun Arising. Is...
by phillipw | Nov 20, 2021 | CH, FR, GO, TH
Free Will Jehovah was the first to think of Free Will. Maybe He pulled back from thinking then. This one divinity went on a spree Of wide creation, making light and men, A trillion galaxies and globes, with no More cogitation. Clearly he was...
by phillipw | Nov 8, 2021 | CH, DO, FA, HE, IV, PA, PH, WH, WO
There Wasn’t Any Hill in Brevard County, Florida, but There Were Songbirds The oatmeal made with milk and honey . . . and With mother love . . . was eaten with the sound PATTI PAGE – Mockin’ Bird Hill（1951）with lyrics – YouTube Of “Mockingbird Hill”...
by phillipw | Nov 7, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, PH, PU, WH
Elementary Love He didn’t notice that the yard in front Was small. At ten he thought that it was big, Or large enough. The two of them could hunt A hiding place beneath the Turk’s Caps, dig For doodle bugs, and daydream play. Both he And Brian...
by phillipw | Oct 27, 2021 | CH, DO, EV, GE, TR
Christian Love and MAGA* These Christians, when they see that church denies Their politics, decide to leave their faith Behind. Their savior in this instance lies To win them, and their Christ becomes a wraith. He changes to a ghost of mercy, love, And Good...
by phillipw | Oct 1, 2021 | CH, MI, RE, RO
Moving, Moving, Still The pilgrims on their way to Lourdes are just Like entomologists that chase fey things, Except the nets do capture perfect dust In patterned beauty on the wanton wings Symmetrical in color and in shape, Those doomed realities. The...
by phillipw | Sep 19, 2021 | CH, ST
Black Hair in Heaven More Beautiful than Absalom with Joab’s Darts through his Heart and Hanging from the Tree His hair was black like Satan’s when he swayed Beside the thrones God and Christ and swirled To simpering music while the millions prayed In ranks of...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2021 | BR, CH, JO, MA, MI, NU, RU, SK, SW, VI, WO
Skinny-dipping with Rupert Brooke, Sturdy as a Marlowe Stanza or Miltonic Ones, in a Night-time Cambridgeshire Pool Virginia Woolf had seen him. She had seen Him whole. She saw his soul, good-hearted, kind, Substantial. She had seen him leaping, clean, More clean...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2021 | BR, CH, GA, LA, RU
Rugby Love Reduced to Black and White in Cambridge Love The love continued into Cambridge days. One Rugby beauty took another in A frame and kept him in his room to gaze At eyes, at stalwart auburn hair, and chin, Not just in daytime, either, but in nights Of...
by phillipw | Sep 12, 2021 | BR, CH, GA, LA, LO, RU
Auburn Love Maleness Maleness Maleness The way a twilight in the autumn turns To unsung colors, so the chapel light Inside the service changes from the burns Of orange to a brown with red so slight It slinks away as suns go down. The red Is almost memory, not real,...
by phillipw | Sep 7, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Seek Him Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “And turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” When language stumbles, and when things are bound To some eternal silence, yes,...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, GO, Ho, JE, TR
Does a Daydream in the Mind of God Become Reality? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When Jesus has a daydream on his throne, The Holy Spirit and the Father share It since the Trinity has always known...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, MA, Ta
French Leave Piloting to Sorrow Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Charles Randall Joseph Taulelle BIRTH 15 Sep 1934 DEATH 17 Nov 1959 (aged 25) BURIAL Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Arlington...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Smashed by Lightning into the Shenandoah Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Ecclesiastes 9:5 I wonder what he took to death of me. His death was whacking as a lightning strike. Then we were washed away. It...
by phillipw | Sep 3, 2021 | AP, CH, CR
Cherry Trees, Apple Trees, Crabapple Trees as Temple Domes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Our souls go out of us when cherries bloom. Our souls go winging out, but not quite free. Instead they have to...
by phillipw | Aug 24, 2021 | CH, MY, ST
Paler than See-through Vellum Decorated with Medieval Leaves and Gospel Writers Perhaps he stands among the Celtic saints As mystical as they with trees he killed. They stand together, he, and trees, and haints In chosen superstitions. Acorns tilled By eons are a...
by phillipw | Aug 16, 2021 | AD, CH, DR, FR, MA, ST
Vanilla Vermont I think the man I loved for many years, A druggie, lost in needles and cocaine, The man who caused so many useless tears, That man called Chuck, would find it quite inane That I am drinking coffee, milky stuff With lots of sweeteners...
by phillipw | Aug 9, 2021 | CH, CO, DO, RE, SE
The Holy Roast “peace on earth, good will toward men” I’m having distant arguments without Connection to the ones I’m fighting with. I write my brutal points because I doubt My brothers will consider them. The myth Of brotherhood is only that, a tale...
by phillipw | Aug 9, 2021 | BU, CH, JU, RE, SH
Judas as a Cannibal Interpreting Holiness Korea sends a priestly man, a monk, To worshiping Japan. He preaches that The animism of their bones is drunk, More like a drunken mouse or bat, And will remain so till they realize That silent Shintō gods are reflections Of...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2021 | CH, JA, OR, PA, PE
Distance is Prophecy Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The distance is attached to futures or A future. In the watercolour scene The distance and the future both...
by phillipw | Jul 26, 2021 | CH, OX, PA
Changed, Remained, Unaltered A midday moon high up above a bird That sings from nowhere, everywhere, will soon Become a paleness in the blue, half slurred In slighter blue of evening’s later sky. That afternoon another songbird tied The time between the noon...
by phillipw | Jul 25, 2021 | CH, DE
Eyes and Hands Not Trying to Understand Depths The crows look down at Asian yellow hands At work with seedlings in the mud. The rice Is planted by the stooping peasant bands, Both birds and farmers with their eyeballs nice In looking, brown and black, at what they...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2021 | CH, PE
Petals and Paradox If petals fall on Avon water streams, Their pinkness disappears. The river flows Unchanged, unchanging. Changelessness forms dreams In minds of gods and holy men. It grows And yet it does not grow. It cannot grow If it is God. ...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2021 | CH, GO, ST
God’s Hard Bolt Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Since Charles has crossed the mountain, now he will Not see the cherry blossoms in the spring. He took me to the Mall but now the...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2021 | BU, CH, SA
Never Mind Nirvana An aching earthquake chasm has more weight Than filled perfection ever gains. The death Of Christ impaled is useful to berate The evils in the world much more than breath Of Buddha, mystic in his musings, thought Beneath a Bodhi tree, his...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2021 | AE, BE, CH, GO, JE
Abandonment’s Magnificat A beauty gone is never gone. It goes Down deep in memory. It does not turn To boredom and it never turns to prose. True beauty is like branding irons that burn The hips because of him or her but more Like him because of what he did between...
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 | Jul 5, 2021 | AR, CH, ON, PA, PH, RE
Perspective Without perspective we can live in white Infinity, far longer than the space In Leonardo. Chinese painters’ sight Swerves larger like an Orthodox choir’s bass In search of certain formlessness. Their blanks Loom almost misty like...
by phillipw | Jul 4, 2021 | CH, RE
The Truth about Fulfillment “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 Corinthinans 13:12 Saint Paul, beheaded for his once seen Lord, Predicted that believers all will see Him...
by phillipw | Jun 30, 2021 | CH, IN, LO, RO, ST
The One is Always First: Einstein’s Theory of Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The man who once was seen and now cannot Be seen is one. He never will be seen Again and yet he still is there. ...
by phillipw | Jun 21, 2021 | CA, CH, FA, IN, PI, PR, RE, RO, SU
Miraculous Bunkum The minds of pilgrims plod along because They lack the gifts required to see without A relic. Hunkered there inside its gauze Of cloth of gold as if in holy pout, It waits for priests to open up its box Or gate, the reliquary encrusted with ...
by phillipw | Jun 20, 2021 | CH, EA, WA
Sempiternity Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The chambered nautilus goes pulsing through Dark depths. It pulses underneath the waves For eons rocking gently, steady, true Enough to last. ...
by phillipw | Jun 10, 2021 | CH, JU, MY, RE
144,000 Thrones Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem My childhood little church, that concrete block One painted white with ziggurat-like face, Was filled with mystic preacher salesman talk So...
by phillipw | Jun 8, 2021 | CH
April Infatuation Saigyô says about the cherry blossoms of Mr. Yoshino, “Could I but divide up myself, and see every spray on unnumbered hills of flowers in bloom!” Let Ariel inhabit me when spring Returns so I can fly from tree to tree. I’ll zoom...
by phillipw | Jun 6, 2021 | CH, CO, DR, RE, ST
Loose Needlework The sage walks round in circles. Blessings burn. The blessings burn farewell. They burn the facts. They never matter. They are there to turn To incense all your scarred up faithless acts Against your wife, and son, and Jesus, too, Those...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2021 | CH, FI, GA, OW, WI, WO
Boy Soldiers, not Toy Soldiers Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Wilfred Owen He’s cuter than the photo that they show So often, more a smiling kid and not A solemn soldier or a poet, no...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | AE, BE, BU, CH, MA, PH, RE, ST
No Hypocrisy or Self-deceiving in Esthetics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When Jesus speaks, the monasteries chant And convents count their beads. On Georgia’s roads His words are...
by phillipw | Jun 3, 2021 | AD, AM, BI, BR, CH, DE, FI, GA, Ho, LO, MI, PO, RO, RU, SC, WO
Blue Rugby and Blue Gallipoli Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We do not think of Rubert Brooke in blue, When we remember him at all. We think of Brooke Between some pages of a volume, true To...
by phillipw | May 26, 2021 | CH, ST, TH
Dixieland Death in the Shenandoah I sleep each night with Charles in my bed. Not quite the whole of Charles’, but his hair Lies underneath my pillow near my head And not so near my heart. A sad affair You might well think, and that is true, except A beauty lingers...
by phillipw | May 25, 2021 | CH, Uncategorized
I Don’t Need Charitable Thoughts from Other Men after Shopping in Oxfam Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem For Henry Who doesn’t like a bargain and great style In dressing? Well, perhaps most men don’t...
by phillipw | May 21, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, MA, RE, RO, SP, ST, UN
Tightly Closed in Open April during the Cherry Blossom Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Remembering sapphire air, I think of you. We shared a cut gem spring which lasted long And long because the...
by phillipw | May 17, 2021 | AD, BA, CH, CR, EV, JE, TE
Fingering of Instruments So, we are made of dust; at least we men Are. God created us from dust. He bound The dust together with some liquid. Then He made us breathe. Between our thighs two round Or oval things he hung. He must have meant For us to use...
by phillipw | Apr 29, 2021 | CH, DA, MI, SA, SI
Occult Messaging on Holy Saturday [If you are reading this sonnet on a mobile phone, it will look best if you read it in landscape view, but maybe you should turn it to portrait view to see the painting by Salvador Dali at the end.] Modern poetry modern verse ...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
What the Pharaohs Commanded in Looking Glasses Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He lives inside the past. Back then he filled A tiny room, but now it glows. The walls Are echoed glass. My spinal...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2021 | AN, BA, BE, BO, CH, FI, MI
Michael Barham Antiques at the Top of the Portobello Road The shops are multi-coloured on their fronts, The pink ones and the gold ones and the grey (Lead blue). Yet then a true blue one confronts Your vision. [Other shoppers wander. They Don’t have a clue. ...
by phillipw | Apr 13, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
As Thermonuclear as Sodom Miraculously clouds of that hot sort That swirled around us, you and me, embraced Us. Arms like these do not allow retort. They hug as hot as those Elijah’s raced To heaven suffered. Yet then unlike those Our clouds held us together all...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2021 | CH, EL, OA, ST, TR
English Trees in Innocence For Charles Randall Stanfield The broad-limbed trees of perished English years And centuries are witnesses to realms Long gone. A duke or princess disappears While tallest peerages, the oaks and elms, Continue in their reign. They spread...
by phillipw | Apr 7, 2021 | CH, GE, SH, WI
Shakespeare the Non-dramatist The people in his tragedies I know Are far too rich with metaphors piled on On top of one another, or the flow Of freshet torrents from all winter gone And raging over one rock cliff. Too rich The language for an ordinary man Or woman—or...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2021 | CA, CH, GR, Ho, ME, TO
Not as Certain as Dim Marble in the Nave We pause beside those tombs, the ones with white Carved marble hands in praying firmness there On chest and breast. They look to be contrite And will be ever so. The lordly prayer Is undermined since also there beside Him is...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2021 | BU, CH, IM, RE, RO
He Wore his Royal Robes to Lead Out in Matins and Vespers Some lines of verse by Robert King of France Sing, simply pious, from one thousand years Gone by. We analyze them, though, askance Because his holiness had fatal fears Like flaming coals inside it. He was so...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2021 | CH, DE, LO, ME, MO, ST
Submerged City You lie, a city now, beneath the clear Depths. You are still but we can see you move Because we knew you when you filled the sphere We call the past now. Memory can prove An old existence: archeology Can bring perfection up from underneath...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2021 | CH, GO, JE, PO
Which God is Not “The intellect can understand any part of a thing as a part, but not as a whole. It can understand anything which God is not.” page 193 That’s really not what poetry can deal With. Poetry that’s poetry cannot Express the whole. A poem makes...