by phillipw | Dec 9, 2020 | BI, CH, EA, GR, IC, OR, TR
Declines and Declining Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The wood that makes the icons’ boxes lacks The holiness that throbs, still, through these saints And sacred ones. Despite the inner cracks...
by phillipw | Aug 4, 2020 | BE, EA, LI, MU, OR, PH, PO, SO, Uncategorized
Initiations “Every word was once a poem” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, “The Poet” “A single letter was a matter of life and death.” ~ Anne Michaels The alphabets came late, like virgins to A wedding feast. The clauses, words, and grunts Of love were...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | BI, CA, DO, EA, FL, MI, OS, PE, PO, WH
The Cape Consider what the cape desires. It wants to see The clouds of birds that used to fly above It in their immemorial paths, sea And sea and sea beneath their search for love And nestlings. Cape Canaveral wants the white And white and white...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2020 | AR, BL, CH, EA, HA, HE, Ho, MA, WA, WH
Backside Gas in that Jar Called Yale One Harold Bloom says modern verse began In 1890—or about then. That Is what one venerating friend claims. Can That be? Only an academic prat Could be so arrogant and blinkered. I Say modern verse began at least as far Back...
by phillipw | May 27, 2020 | BO, CH, EA, EN, FI, GA, HU, LI, PA, RO
Earl Grey in Old Imari Porcelain He could have stayed behind his desk. He could Have signed stock-trading bonds. He could have stayed Not writing symphonies. Each night he would Have travelled home to comfort. Hubert strayed. He could have travelled home each...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | BE, BR, EA, MA, RA, WA
Death Defied in the British Library I sit across from Wayne, but decades on And much improved. Not only young again, But cuter nose, and lips more cushion drawn, More velvet-shaped—too lovely, these, to deign To pray or sing a Sabbath verse. The hair Is lovely,...
