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 | Mar 29, 2022 | BR, CU, RU, Ta
The Flimsiness of Letters “All the little emptiness of love!” ~ Rupert Brooke What kind of letters? Letters in a clay Configuration, cuneiform shapes gone For thousands of declines in their array In sunsets, twilights and each hopeless dawn Were letters that...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2022 | BR, CU, GA, HA, JA, ST, UN
Cool as a Thick-haired Cucumber “I have need to busy my heart with quietude.” ~ Rupert Brooke James suffered like a teenybopper lass In love with manufactured pop star guys. He hovered like an altar boy at mass Outside the poet’s rooms. He hoped his eyes Would...
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, 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 6, 2021 | AB, AE, AR, BE, CU, ES, MO
Picasso! Don’t look at nature after art to slight The art. The point of art is not to ape But thinking. Artists target to incite, Not prettify, but cause the mind to gape. To criticize a painting for a lack Of slavishness to facts is silliness Akin to faulting...
by phillipw | Sep 9, 2020 | CU, GR, MO, PA, PI
When Voices are Replaced by Squared Up Bars A watercolor, or some paintings made Of oils, or photographs in black and white Are all like Cubist art but with truth’s blade, Not brush. The forms, the shadows, and the light In images of island Greece, are grand...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CU, EU, LO, PA, VI
Gay Love as Paradox Love, who is wisdom’s pupil gay ~ Euripides Euripides goes on to say that love Leads on to virtue, often. Note that one Word,: “often,” though, for love is not above Dementing men with rot-like passion. Stun Them, that is what love does,...
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 | Sep 30, 2019 | AN, CU, FA, LU
God’s Love An angel sought to be like God, better Than Him. This Lucifer was hurtled down. He wanted only to break the fetter Of abject devotion. A fiery gown Enveloped him. He wears it still. It’s Hell. Eve tasted fruit. The curses came like snake...
by phillipw | Aug 5, 2019 | CU
Two Sides of One Channel, Sea, or Ocean A strand, another strand, two banks of one Wide river separate — but offer more. Exotic poetry entails a sun Unseen until the poems reach the foreign shore Across the currents of division. Then The poets there, beyond the...