by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | AE, ES
An Esthetic Rule for Life A wasp just landed on my hand. It moved About a while and flew away. A breeze So tiny I could barely feel it proved The threat was gone. My feeling of unease Was just as short as those antennae. It Was perfect as a killing thing. That black...
by phillipw | Apr 17, 2020 | AE, AG, AN, BE, ES, PE
Peonies, Agamemnon, and the Iliad The peonies hold on in night-time dark. They fade and slacken to another kind Of loveliness. They do not know the stark Fate bearing down on them. Their pinks are blind, As blind as Homer in the palace of A king condemned by...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AE, AP, DI, ES
Volcanic Balance Cleanliness is what we need in the art, In music, and in poetry. The heats Of passion and the pulsing of the heart And other organs, lungs, are best when beats Become subdued by breezy parts of mind, The temperate regions. Coolness enters in...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AE, BE, ES, Uncategorized
Ancient Art “the ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of aesthetics in our time” ~ Leo Tolstoy A moral pillar rises from the base Of ancient poetry and art. The stone Is hard and white. It helps...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2020 | AE, ES
The Poetic Kind of True “The stories begin in kinds of truth. As events recede in time, they grow not smaller but larger in language. The ancestor who fought locally becomes a hero in a battle which assumes the scale of the epic.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First...
by phillipw | Apr 9, 2020 | AE, BE, ES
Critiquing Beauty Your beauty reasons truer than the truth. It throbs a thoughtful feeling where a mere Veracity of judgement yields to youth And freshest irises. Your pupils peer Past plain philosophy. Where liquid lies On lenses, they give entrance...
