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...
