by phillipw | Sep 7, 2023 | AM, AN, CL, ID, PE
The Ideal Refuses Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Greeks never showed the Amazon with one Breast chopped away in marble. Beauty’s shape Flowed lacking flaws. Greek teachings all...
by phillipw | Jan 26, 2023 | CL, JO, Uncategorized
Can Freedom Be a Creed? So…never mind twinned paradox (yet not Just two-word oxymoron). “Freedom ruled,” Is what the English peasant poet taught. This writer did not need his knowledge schooled. John Clare, he should have been called Clear. ...
by phillipw | Aug 11, 2021 | CL
Intelligent Music and the Unforeseen Chord The height of music comes to hearts refined. The strength of it is how it cannot be Predicted. Next accords to reach the mind Are guessed but then comes serendipity. A harmony the soul desires becomes A better beauty. ...
by phillipw | Jun 28, 2021 | AM, CL, EI, HA, JA, KO, PA, VA
Haiku Paradox The Korean boat does Not pause. Sails cause it to pass, But where in this haze? ~ Buson Forking into mist A stream on the moor is vague And clear, both, at once. ~ Shirao An odd boat, foreign in its shape, slips past, Korean in its shape and...
by phillipw | May 19, 2021 | CL, GU, OR, SE
Tight before Release The bowstring waits to twang. The tension raves Against the fingers. Then the arrow zings As deeply as it can. The target braves The penetration. Tautest Imai strings Await the plucking of a classical Refinement. They desire release...
by phillipw | Mar 23, 2021 | CL, CU, MA, OR, SE
Past Joy Everything Else is Death Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Le petite mort” You probe for joy, and probe for joy, then probe Again, again — more deeply. Joy is there. You know that long...
by phillipw | Mar 20, 2021 | CL, FU, LO, OR, SE
No Separate Peace “. . . it should have been true. So I didn’t argue.” ~ John Knowles, A Separate Peace When we have finished all the passion, sweat, And dripping body fluids; when we reach The pounded climax to that final threat That comes with deep...
by phillipw | Mar 20, 2021 | CL, CU, FU, LO, OR, SE
Spewing in the Depths to Heights, Rule-breaking Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When I go into you, I know what he Felt up in heaven, Lucifer, in love With liberty, or more love’s anarchy. I know...
by phillipw | Mar 19, 2021 | CL, CO, CU, FU, IN, OR, PE, SE
Priming Your Pump at the Well Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Just one slight push and he slips into you. Unspoken is this love, for who needs love In words when there is love to spew? You want a...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2021 | CH, CL, ME
Waking Up Still Alive in a Pastel Gas Chamber The melancholy of a lifetime hums, Hums silence into sadness, though a mild Kind, in the velvet sunset which becomes The sum of all the wounds your beds compiled. The noon intensifies the wounding if The melancholy lingers...
by phillipw | Mar 4, 2021 | CL
Aloof Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A solitary tongue of cloud comes out From cave depths in a mountain, mist from dark Abyss. The moisture whitely sniffs about. It tries to...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2021 | AE, BE, CL, ES, RO
But Perhaps Keats Understood It at His Best Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The Pure Present which so often aroused Goethe’s admiration in every product of the classical life and in sculpture...
by phillipw | Jan 3, 2021 | CL, HE, LO, OR, SE, ST
What Matters Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Orgasm by ahermin on DeviantArt He said he loved. (At least that’s what she thought.) So much was going on inside her head That maybe...
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 | Nov 24, 2020 | A, CL, ED, EN, MU, NO, PE, PH, PI
“Orpheus with his lute made trees” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem For Philippe Entremont What use is music lacking fingers, strings, And tremolo, the purity of voice Of flute in Grieg’s concerto,...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | CL, PO, TR
Ars Poetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | AN, CL
Ars Sonnetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | AN, AT, BO, CA, CL, CO, CY, HE, IS, PI, SA
Treasures from the Wreck of the Unrecoverable Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “Athenaeus quotes more than ten thousand lines of verse in it, many not preserved or attested elsewhere.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets Ten...
by phillipw | Jun 14, 2020 | CL, NE, TR
Ars Sonnetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | CH, CL, ET, HU, LU, MU, PA
Heart Trouble Where does music come from? Does it come from Heart wounds? No. Music is at first derived From minds. It offers mathematics’ thrum For ears. At Eton teenage Parry thrived On music and on sport in spite of heart Disease becoming palpable. ...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AN, CL, PO, TR
Once was Evil Enough The ancient tragedies of Athens played Upon that stage just once and then were rolled Around themselves in paper. They had made Impressions strong enough and so were scrolled Up, waiting … silently … for who knows what? For paper...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | CL, FO, PO, TR
Ars Poetica “The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The ‘classical’, then, is ‘first class’, though it is no longer heavily armoured.” ~...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | CL, OR, SE
Surging If planets spun before it entered you, They faltered, staggered as I thrust inside And upwards. If the oceans once were blue, They changed to blood with foaming lust. The stride Of hardened flesh in yielding slickness changed The universe to...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2020 | CL
Michael Curtis of AEGEA ….. He wants to have the purest, clearest tongue, The crystal tongue that earliest of throats Employed. He wants to sing with voice so young That only sail-like vowels will move in boats On springs arising out of moveless rocks In...
by phillipw | Nov 6, 2019 | AD, CH, CL, GI, HE, KI, TE
….. Pubescent Vector Tom’s shoulders—knots of boyishness—were tied By Jahweh when in Baden-Powell mood But move in that white shirt where they must hide (Required by dress-code rule, to make Tom good), So they remain as veiled, as chaste, and...
by phillipw | Oct 31, 2019 | CL
Climate, Strange Can you remember when the daffodils Meant spring was on the way? Each yellow drift Beside the bank or just beneath the hill’s Slope gave the eye and soul a gold bright lift. That doesn’t happen now. We remember How promise of revival made us new...
by phillipw | Aug 12, 2019 | BR, CL
He’s Out of Place Here He’s out of place here, looks like he’s a fan Of Manchester United, one who stands Among the other scarf-draped blokes. A man With snub nose, eyebrows thick like black iron bands Is reading here. A sloping forehead, small...