by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | CA, FL, SI, WH, WI, WO
As Dead As Sabbath-keeping Saints Columba and Patrick on Their Long Lost Shores Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I cannot quite call back to mind and heart My father’s voice, not even when he told...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2023 | FL, HA, IS, MA
Palestine Protesters in Perspective Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In Michigan an X-er in one town Is all upset because an Xmas band Is drowned out by a protest. One cold frown Is sent across The...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2023 | FL, MO, PE, RO
Nursing Nutrition on Your Knees Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When humans scold you, turn to flowers and vines. Combine them. Morning glories are ideal As therapy or zazen. Blooms are mines For...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2023 | BU, FL, LO, RE
Incapable Beauty The best thing that the poet pointed out Is that wise roses never know that all Are shriveling, young. The flowers never pout In sympathy with us. They never brawl With gods for us, to spare us from some fate We do not know awaits us. ...
by phillipw | Jan 5, 2023 | BU, FL, PH, RE
Sacred and Profane Buddhas The meaning of the Buddha is in all Things, not just sacred lotuses or trees Saints sit beneath. Secular flies let fall Their droppings on the painted frieze Brushed onto white rice paper on a screen, Or watercolor painted on...
by phillipw | Dec 12, 2022 | BR, FL, OR
Marmalade Scent is Missing The orange sunset seen through orange trees Shows Florida as orange, orange, green. The gloss of evergreen these orange tints tease With glints so slight of orange that the scene Defies the eyes to see the orange hints Upon the dark...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2022 | CA, FL, HI, LU
The Heavenly Choir after It Fell on Florida The spider web comes Hot against his face; August In damp Kulaqua. In Florida humidity comes full On like a curse. A thunderstorm comes down In swashing curtains made of wet warm wool. A coolness follows but then comes...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2022 | BR, FL, Ho, MO, TI
A 1950s Florida Day and July 20 and 21, 1969 Winged ants fly From a small house At the foot of Mount Fuji. ~ Buson The clapboard house shines white in afternoon Brevard in sunlight. There in front are green And orange from the flame vine. There’s no moon Above...
by phillipw | Dec 5, 2021 | BE, BR, FL, Ho, OR, TI
Enamel Trees Longing Ago The orange blossoms fill my native place. They fill it every year with white perfume. The scent has piquant yellow at heart’s space, The hearts held out bouquet-like, as a plume On green wing branches where the mockingbird Might...
by phillipw | Aug 10, 2021 | FL, TI
Condemned Mosquito heat envelopes everyone In Titusville and then come clouds pumped out From funnels on the trucks, poison to stun The stings before they reach with pointed snout Their victims. White men and the black ones search Out dark brown...
by phillipw | May 9, 2021 | DE, FL, PE
Flowers and Flamingos Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem It suffers violence but it does not know What violence is. Is blossom pink less real Because it does not know a cruel blow Might be delivered to...
by phillipw | May 3, 2021 | DR, FL
Bloody Queen Mary Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When fed from underneath, a flame is hard To quench. The fire burns from the deepest down Domains. The hottest flame cuts like a shard...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2021 | AM, BO, BR, CH, EN, FL, MA, PL, RU, SM
International Geographic The tawny boys run through the woods and streets Wherever they are raised, in rural realms Of citrus Florida, where sunshine meets Them under orange grove trees or under elms In England—everywhere. They build their dykes Or dams, their...
by phillipw | Feb 28, 2021 | DR, FL, RE
Escape from Recurring Pain The water comes before, then comes the flow Of water after. Now, forever, these First lead then follow. Floods or trickles go Wherever they insist. Priests can’t appease Them. Always they repeat their sequence, force, Retreat, return. ...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2020 | CH, EP, FL, FR, JO, OT, PH, RO, SP
Epiphany not Abruptness A mamba crosses paths with you. A shark Fin heaves to view in nearby waves. A plague Ramps out across the world. A winging lark Explodes from cover at your feet. No vague, Uncertain certainty like fate explains The threat, the...
by phillipw | Nov 9, 2020 | DA, FL, SE
Stomps to Completion “dragging my arms upward and into a circle” ~ Jaime Mathis, It Rises and Falls The resonating hole he wants is down Below, guitar hole waiting for his touch Above it. It is never like a frown Except he tortures it. It wants to clutch Him...
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 | Jul 16, 2020 | CO, EU, FL, HA, HE, OR, PL, RO
That Supreme Nazi, Plato, Sounded Off about Orpheus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He takes the poison of his courage and His love. He does not try to dazzle death With poetry: Romeo is not bland...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | BE, FL, HE, WH, WO
Deer-tongue The smell of deer-tongue came to me today From decades past. I mean the fragrance of The dried out leaves, as dried out as the splay Of decades since my father taught us love, His sons, beneath the Florida sun, leaves That called up beauty...
by phillipw | May 29, 2020 | AD, CH, FL, GO, HE, MO, PR, RO, SE, ST, Ta
Talleyrand & Gouveneur Morris Crippled Twinning “Your character is such that you destroy Unhappiness much faster than can fate Create its sadnesses,” said Monstesquiou To Adelaïde, who had the lovely trait Of being charming Countess de Flahaut— Which meant that...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | CO, FL, LO, LU, PA, PL, RO, SE
The Purpose of the Cosmos Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dawns come and go. The twilights blaze and fade. The phases of the moon go round and round In slivers and in spheres. Sea days are made...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2020 | CA, FL
Falun Gong Forbearance at the Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida The Spanish in Saint Augustine knew well That some day France’s warships would loom Near. Cannons would attack. Attempts to quell Disaster were required to meet the boom Of French...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2020 | FL, WH
Click on the link below. My Aunt was Beautiful like a Hollywood Glamor Queen pics.doc
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2019 | FL
Fletchers Make the Feathers on God’s Shining Arrows Genesis 1:3 “Love is life’s end (an end, but never ending), All joys, all sweets, all happiness, awarding; Love is life’s wealth (ne’er spent, but ever spending)….” ...
by phillipw | Nov 13, 2019 | CA, FL, TI, WH
Woodrow Wilson Whidden, Sr. 1913-1999 ; 1:32 in the Afternoon, July 16, 1969 Khonsu; wikimedia commons He had a lion childhood made of shoves And tumbles, little nips, and blinks, there by The sea of Florida with sisters’...
by phillipw | Nov 4, 2019 | FL, JE, TI
Quintet of Sonnets about Jeanette Black and White Her eyes cast down as if ashamed of style And beauty, she is captured. She is held Forever in the falseness. All the while This image has existed, it’s compelled Jeanette...
by phillipw | Nov 2, 2019 | FL, WH
My Aunt Jeanette was Beautiful like like a Hollywood Glamor Queen and my Mother Wanted to Wear Jungle Gardenia The taste of Florida sunshine, its smells And colors, orange blossoms against green Leaves, evergreen in sunlight, wetly swells...
by phillipw | Aug 25, 2019 | AE, AL, BU, FL, IN, LO, ME, NO
Erde und Himmel: a Sonnet The picture on the page (this photo in the ad) was not of you. It looked like you, though. Can it be that something quite so thin and boring as casually leafing through an in-flight magazine might bring this...
by phillipw | Aug 23, 2019 | FL
Daytona Paradiso The neon signs of Florida are matched By empty sunlight in her days. The worst, Perhaps, is how the local roads have hatched Those crummy little businesses accursed With would be clever, come on names that churn Your sunburned gut. Or maybe even...