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 | Apr 12, 2024 | CR, MA, ME, VI
Damned Quixote Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When William Blake went mad, it was his soul That drove him to it. It was far too straight, As straight as light, unerring in its goal When...
by phillipw | Aug 22, 2022 | CR, PA
Occam’s Razor Answers the Question of Creation … ’Tis the Gift to be Simple and Sophisticated The ship, complex, is yet not like a whale With all its DNA. The many bits, The hull, the rudder, engine, or a sail, Together move across the sea that hits The bow...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2022 | CR, SP, TR
I Saw Boys Playing Cricket . . . . . . in white upon a cricket ground today In Oxfordshire as if long centuries passed And made no difference. There I saw the sway Of bat. Tradition in a woollen cast, A cast, though supple as the hips and thighs Contained in...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2022 | AR, CR, CU, EJ, MA, OR, PU, SE, SP, UN, underarm hair, ZE
Cobalt and Amber: Prometheus Daydreaming Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If I could shape the first man, I would make Him cobalt blue, his eyes a Viking blue, His nose a righteous Grecian one to shake...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2022 | CR, DE, GO
Sapphire Surprise Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When gods first started making humans from . . . The bits of dirt around the earth . . . , the shapes Were much the same if made of dust...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2022 | BR, CO, CR, PA
Creation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The universe that wasn’t . . . just . . . got . . . bored. It yawned and burped out big time. From the yawn And belch...
by phillipw | Oct 7, 2021 | CR
Silence in the Southern Hills The words forget reality as soon As they begin to form somewhere inside The brain. They start as thought that changes noon To mist, or weddings with a kidnapped bride. The words replace what they would leap to do. They grasp at...
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 | 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 | Mar 19, 2021 | CR, LO, QU, SE, TH
Queen Mary Had Only a Tumor as her Phantom Pregnancy We all know what the phoenix is about. It glories in the flame like Dido burned Upon that throne. That passion has a clout. It has its flame, it is the flame, flame turned Upon itself, flame causing us to die And...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2021 | AL, CR, DE, ED, FA, GA, GR, Ho, SC, SM
Wandering in Warriston Cemetery “Smith contracted diphtheria in November 1866 and, although he seemed to have recovered by Christmas, was then struck down by typhus. He died at home on 5 January 1867 at the very beginning of his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in...
by phillipw | Mar 3, 2021 | CR
Homoeomeria A feeling comes. The earth is falling from The edge of clouds. From nothingness a sword Appears penumbra-like. More like a hum Than fugue a Viking warship foams a fjord. An egret rises from lagoon miasma Punctilious, precise, and feathered...
by phillipw | Feb 11, 2021 | CR, GA, Ho, PU, SE
Edinburgh Eden The day lily blooms, But bluebells long ago, how, How to forget them? ~ Phillip Whidden Day lilies bloom, but bluebells long ago Are what the man relives. The lilies die The same day that they open. Petals grow Their orangeness, their...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2020 | CH, CR, FO, GO, RE
Godly Fluids God lives where time is an instruction, since Eternity requires a teacher doomed To death. Divinity can never wince Unless his palms and arches are consumed By pierce of nails to agony, are torn As gravity drags down the flesh, and rips...
by phillipw | Nov 28, 2020 | CR, DO, GO, ME, MU, PH, SP, SU
Still God Amphibole Tremolite-121232. By Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10140515 Suppose that God could resurrect you whole, By quarks and hadrons, nth particle by Nth...
by phillipw | Oct 11, 2020 | BO, CR, HI, IN, LI, MO, PO, TE, WR
A History of Upswelling Poisons Unintended Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem e plants some seeds, some sentences and words In rows. What might become of clauses, verbs, And paragraphs he cannot know. ...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, BO, BR, CA, CR, GA, HA, HE, KA, MA, NE, PA, PR, SA
Troy in New Orleans, Manhattan, or London Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem So I found “Helen” sitting in a streetcar; the Dionysian revels of her court were transferred to a Metropolitan roof garden...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | CR, GO, HR, PH, PR, Prinice Philip, QU
Queen Mary & the Governess: Ho Hum Hussies The queen of England met the young Greek prince. She said he was quite nice and had blue eyes. Her Majesty flunked the test to evince The slightest insight. That is no surprise. Queen Mary was just a bloody...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AN, CR, CU, EG, MU, SE
Pious, Pious, Pious Papyri Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you were set the challenge, “Think about The most surreal conflation of some facts From distant times,” I wager (with no doubt That I would...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AB, CR, NI
Crepe Myrtle Armory A pink of seriousness, of solemn frills, Is roasting in the tropic sun. A breeze From hottest sultriness and languor spills Across the flowers and leaves. They are at ease Though. This is what God made them for and so They flourish in their...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | CH, CR, NA, WI
Weakness Again and Again The English chopped the neck of Charles One, And next they had a king not called a king, The Lord Protector. Soon they called the son Of Lopped Off Head to bring back royal bling Like orb and crown. He failed to make an heir, Producing...
by phillipw | May 14, 2020 | BI, CO, CR, UN
Splendor Exploding outwards now, the universe Is ever an expanding tidal wave, A circle of catastrophe, a curse. It is an ever-living deathly grave For all that it gives birth to, hexing life Produced in its calamities. It sears Its breath across...
by phillipw | Apr 29, 2020 | CR, DI, GO, TR
“Work of the Father of Glory” ………. — “weork Wuldor-Faeder” ……………~ Cædmon, “Cædmon’s Hymn” Ideals, those wonders that are perfect, come From only one perfection. Like begets Its like, its offspring, that proceeding from...
by phillipw | Apr 24, 2020 | CR, DN, RN
Primordial Rosaries under Electron Microscopes Dedicated to Watson and Crick When focused down enough, the everyday Becomes transcendent. Microscopes can see Complexities so small that they will say With tiny shouts and psalms, “Come, come, and flee Away from your...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | CR, FR, MA, SP
They Loved Sovereignty and Liberty Most “And the Lacedæmonians offer sacrifices to Love before they go to battle, thinking that safety and victory depend on the friendship and those who stand side by side in the battle array. And the Cretans, in their line of battle,...
by phillipw | Feb 9, 2020 | CR, FI, GO
Dante and the Divine The truth is love alone it is which moves The sun and stars. That final line Of mastery says love alone, love proves The primal power and makes the heavens a shrine, And love not only was the first great cause But also is the...
by phillipw | Jan 12, 2020 | CR
Windsor Four pheasants run across a pale green field. It’s not the hunting season so they’re sound. Their jewelled, velvet breasts will not yet yield To royal guns. True beauty should confound The barrels and the triggers, but red death Blasts...
by phillipw | Dec 11, 2019 | CR, LO, RO
Cremation Our future ashes will well symbolize The waste heap we have made of myths we shared; And yet, though cinders say that flames have flared, Our past doomed heat—with all which that implies. Our embers will be cold, and represent The...
by phillipw | Dec 1, 2019 | CR
No Xi’an Here Face leaning forward, slightly lowered, he Has dignity, an Oriental kind, The way the eye is held ceramically When looking at a Chinese vase in bind Of glaze and beauty. This richest skin Of mellowing vellum colors, but still strong As handmade...
by phillipw | Nov 25, 2019 | CR
The Uncut Version A rodent with a nut tucked in its cheek Displays the bulge, a greedy fur balloon, A swelling larger than its head. The beak Of pelican expands. The whole lagoon Is gulped to swill small fish. In fact, it’s hard To think of an example in this...
by phillipw | Nov 14, 2019 | CR
From Everlasting to Everlasting The clearest tenor note from man or brass Bell shape extended speaks now through the heart. It doesn’t matter if there is no mass For it to fit into or there’s no part For it in harmonies or choir. The note Itself is why Jehovah’s...
by phillipw | Oct 16, 2019 | CR, TR
I Saw the Cricket Ground I saw the cricket ground in evening light, In Windsor light with calm men moving through The evening air and dressed in cricket white. Long centuries are contained beneath the blue Of evening sky which folds the chestnut blooms In its...
by phillipw | Oct 10, 2019 | CR, MI
Golden Miami Viewed at Night from the International Space Station Before Jehovah’s breath commanded light, The dark ruled absolute in every place Except where God enjoyed his perfect might, Perhaps. There was no nighttime there. God’s face Was altogether...
by phillipw | Oct 6, 2019 | CH, CR, MA, ST
He Never Came to Travel in the Coach Past Regal Fields with Me ‘A chain was provided to bind him to the stake, and after it had tightly encircled him, fire was put to the fuel, and the flames began soon to ascend. Then were the glorious sentiments of the martyr made...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2019 | CR, GO
Slew Across the universe the only straight Component is the hasty one, the light God spoke, that first thing that obeyed the weight Of his commands. Jehovah found it slight, Though, boring—or it seems he did because He never made another item in...
by phillipw | Aug 19, 2019 | CR
The April Crabapple Blossoming Outside the Library at Southern Missionary College A vision of eternity in white And pink (a promise of more white to come) Rose up above me. Till I saw that sight, Jehovah was a dose of tedium And heaven full of boring Bible mist....
by phillipw | Jul 2, 2019 | CR
Crepe Myrtle Armory A pink of seriousness, of solemn frills, Is roasting in the tropic sun. A breeze From hottest sultriness and languor spills Across the flowers and leaves. They are at ease Though. This is what God made them for and so They flourish in their...