by phillipw | Jan 2, 2024 | EM, SE, WI
Exponential Nuance Z = Z2 + C When meaning’s sense transforms from words like notes Do when they turn to melody with chords, The harmonies with rhyming rhythms, throats And instruments all blending widely towards That certainty which saints and...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | EM, Ho, KE, LU
What Movie Stars Can Never Be Enchantment is a slavery to stars Of sweatless screens, the cinema, tv, Or Netflix, or on smartphones. Out on Mars Stars walk around, and though that’s stupid, we Watch on. We know that we are lacking like Some Sad Sack clown. An...
by phillipw | Sep 26, 2021 | AE, DE, EM, PR, RA, WA, WH
Barbaric Yawp His “poetry” is not so much a thing Of barbarism as it is like Greek Or Roman oratory. In its ring It has the sound of bombast. No, not sleek, But more like overstated prose tricked out As verse on pages. Rhetoric high-flown Quite...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2021 | DO, ED, EM, Ho, OL, RA
The Range of American Letters Including e e cummings The English language in the farther west Can be as harsh as sneering Ambrose Bierce Or roaring Robinson Jeffers. The zest Appears in Marquis’s tomcat Bill, fierce Beside Mehitabel and Archie. Calm Was English in...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2021 | EM, PO, RA, TR
Sexual Torture The phrase in Japanese “comes smelling out” Becomes just “wafted.” What a letdown such Attempts result in, only a Girl Scout Translation. Poetry deploys a crutch When being forced across from foreign tongue To foreign tongue. When...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2021 | EM, MA, PH, ST
The Tonic of Thought from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Not all of thought is good, but thinking heals, Or offers therapy. The thinkers past Give guidance in their...
by phillipw | Dec 31, 2020 | AL, DO, EM, TR, WH
The Innocence of Snow Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Wherever snow is, it is always just Like snow in other places. Snow in Rome And Paris lies just like the holy dust Of manna in the desert,...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2020 | AN, CH, EG, EM, GR, MO, ST
Ritual of Something Too like Vacuum As ignorant as light that streams from rooms Where love has been, we think of you. Alone Now, more like air within the pharaohs’ tombs, We try to fill the dark with more than bone And skin of memory. Your flesh recalled In...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2020 | AU, CO, DA, EM, FA, HE, Ho, MA, NE, RA, TH, TR
Mystics of Concord Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem New England thinkers mixed autumnal views With leaves from Homer, also Dante’s leaves. That blinded poet managed to suffuse The thoughts...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2020 | EM, SU, WR
Wretchedness is a sacred thing. ~ Seneca We miss the point unless we see that pain Is holy to the Odyssey and to The Iliad. The deepest holy vein That runs right through them is the shouting clue As loud as shrieking over loveless death. Too late to yell when...
by phillipw | Oct 4, 2020 | CO, DA, EM, GR, OS, PU, WI
Who Cares about Mere Language? “Every word was once a poem.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in “The Poet.” Greek graffitos put the letter V and the letter M on walls during Greece’s occupation by Nazis. V = Vinceremo (we will win). M = Mussolini Merde. Any graffitos...
by phillipw | May 31, 2020 | AD, EM, FE, TE
Black Light was not Needed I used to wear my heart a little wet With Day Glo blood, and pumping, on my sleeve, A pulse of adolescent scarlet, jet, Throb, jet in all directions. No steel greave Protected it politely in this show. Beats warbled as a sobbing gospel...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | EM, LO, LU
Hotmail I still remember writing words of love On notes of vellum-colored paper, rich And stiff as passion, smoother than a glove Of silk so sleek it seemed no tidy stitch Was needed. (What has tidiness to do With steel desire?) I still recall the cards Of...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | DI, EM, PO
Long Ignored Marks in her Poems Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The love-vased Emily put dashes in The gnomes she gave as poetry. She packed Them full of other blooms and roots, like sin For instance,...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AE, BE, EM, ES, FE, FR, HA, LO, PO, RA, Uncategorized
Haydn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A poem does not need to be about Emotions, yours or anyone’s. Instead A sonnet may avoid a tear or shout. Indeed the lines could be about your...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | DI, EM, HU, PO
A Buzzing Probe in Deep-throat Nectar Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Early poetry finds its stories and then finds ways of remembering them.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 8 “Helen Hunt Jackson...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | BU, DI, EM, EZ, JO, KE, KH, OM, OR, PE, PO, RA, RO, SA
The Bones of Orpheus, the Hair of Keats Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If we collected poets’ body parts And put them in glass cases, would the world Adore them there like saints? Pickled hearts Of...
by phillipw | Apr 6, 2020 | BA, DI, EM
Little Blues Packets Thomas Wentworth Higginson reported Dickinson’s comments about sweets in a letter to his wife: “‘People must have puddings’ this [was said] very dreamily, as if they were comets—so she makes them” (L342a)...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | DI, EM, JO, KE
Unfinished Symphonies All lives are incomplete, not just the life Of Keats—or Emily in Amherst locked In circumstance. Chance wields the palette knife And even genius finds its choices balked By limitations of the oil paints That fate provides. The colors on...