by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | AR, CH, ET, FR
Étude in C Minor, Opus 25 no. 12 with Porphyry Shouts Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Chopin étude rams the room with power, Arpeggios that swamp and swamp, then swamp The purple, pulsing chords,...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2024 | FR, MA
Father and Friendship My father, he believed in friendship, so Much so he called his two first sons the names Of closest, most beloved of friends. Forgo The family obligations, family claims, Cut straight to purer love than heirdom’s weight, A nobler...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2024 | CH, FR, MA, ST
“One Soul in Bodies Twain” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Seventh Type of Ambiguity ~ William Empson A single photon passes through two slits At once, impossible, yet not quite so. The quantum...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2023 | AN, FR, PE, PH, VA, YO
Orange Penetrates so Intense that It Throbs as Purple Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Why bother with bare beauty when deep sex Comes offered in the package? Canyons etched With liquid bearing scree...
by phillipw | Jun 24, 2023 | FR, MA
The Bride If Tennyson had crushed that flower in The crannied wall, would he have known what God And man are? Would that poet know what sin And Christ’s theodicy are? Overawed Is what this rhymester wanted most to be. He didn’t really...
by phillipw | Jan 26, 2023 | FR
Can Freedom Be a Creed? So…never mind twinned paradox (yet not Just two-word oxymoron). “Freedom ruled,” Is what the English peasant poet taught. This writer did not need his knowledge schooled. John Clare, he should have been called Clear. ...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2022 | DE, FR, QU, WH
The Verges of Oblivion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem These ones lie now in death except in scraps Like tombstones, marriage licenses, and birth Certificates. From these no useful maps Can...
by phillipw | Feb 20, 2022 | CH, FR, PE, QU, RE
Live Aid Because God has Allowed Famine in Ethiopia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem All things work together for good ~ Romans 8:28 The congregation raises hands and wrists In Christ Church,...
by phillipw | Nov 28, 2021 | FR, MO, SE
I Wrote my First Poem about Her When We Were Teens She made her way from seventeen to be At mother’s funeral, a long time on That journey. In between those years debris Of life had separated us. Yvette had gone To black men in her bed, a husband—then The sex god...
by phillipw | Nov 22, 2021 | AN, FR, MA, PR
Straight Road Willows Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The friend has gone along the long straight road With willows all along on left and right. Their greenness does not...
by phillipw | Nov 20, 2021 | CH, FR, GO, TH
Free Will Jehovah was the first to think of Free Will. Maybe He pulled back from thinking then. This one divinity went on a spree Of wide creation, making light and men, A trillion galaxies and globes, with no More cogitation. Clearly he was...
by phillipw | Nov 7, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, PH, PU, WH
Elementary Love He didn’t notice that the yard in front Was small. At ten he thought that it was big, Or large enough. The two of them could hunt A hiding place beneath the Turk’s Caps, dig For doodle bugs, and daydream play. Both he And Brian...
by phillipw | Sep 3, 2021 | AS, FR
Never a Lack of a Target An afterthought of life is death, but frogs Sing always, solely of old age or death. The rest of us allow unwholesome smogs Of daily life to fill our songs. Frogs’ breath Is drawn in only for their threnody, For ours as well...
by phillipw | Sep 2, 2021 | FR, HA, PO, RA
Japanese and Chinese Poets Imagined Frogs Performing Poems Te wo tsuite uta mōshiaguru kawazu hana Placing his hands on Mud, the frog respectfully Recites his poem. ~ Sōkan Those poets speak of frogs producing lines Of poetry. Such poets of the pond Gulp forth...
by phillipw | Aug 16, 2021 | AD, CH, DR, FR, MA, ST
Vanilla Vermont I think the man I loved for many years, A druggie, lost in needles and cocaine, The man who caused so many useless tears, That man called Chuck, would find it quite inane That I am drinking coffee, milky stuff With lots of sweeteners...
by phillipw | Aug 10, 2021 | CO, FO, FR, WI
Advice for Living Do life the way a worker honeybee Approaches living, but without the fault Of filling life without wild liberty. Stretch up. Attend to life as if pole vault Maneuvers at their height were done without The flexing strength that...
by phillipw | Jul 29, 2021 | FR
The Rarest Entity in Devotion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Friendship how rare” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley Both, straight and knit together, unity As would be truths, the two are...
by phillipw | May 21, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, MA, RE, RO, SP, ST, UN
Tightly Closed in Open April during the Cherry Blossom Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Remembering sapphire air, I think of you. We shared a cut gem spring which lasted long And long because the...
by phillipw | May 2, 2021 | FR, LA, UN
Perfection from Perfection “the perfect law of liberty” ~ James 1:25 The law of liberty is that you must Be free. The universe is made by laws Commanding everything from cosmic dust (Between the constellations) thin as gauze Of subatomic particles—to fleets Of...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2021 | AR, FR, MO, PO, RI
Rimbaud’s Tiny Kisser Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem …….. It’s worse than that unsmiling mouth implies. It’s more a grimness, executioner Made flesh and teeth. If he were...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2021 | CA, FR, JU, PH, PS, SI
Panicky Purity The phantoms of the heart and brain are drugs From soul and not from science. They are like Some sort of dreamlike but effective plugs Created for our therapy. A dyke Holds back the floods… and heart holds back the brain And rigid...
by phillipw | Mar 18, 2021 | CO, DR, FR, HI, PO, SO
Distant Hits The writing of vague truths in sonnets to Those readers you will never know takes on An almost holy redolence. You brew Up draughts of hormones and of nights long gone, And other steams of psychedelic drugs, And somewhere far away,...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2021 | DE, FR, JA, JU, LI, MA, NE, PS
Art for Farts’ Sake The monstrous lack of any sense in art Was followed by the monstrous lack of sense In thinking and philosophy . The part Of Derrida and Deconstruction’s dense Offensive springs to mind. A crazed theory Of this and that philosopher in turn...
by phillipw | Mar 1, 2021 | FR
Messed Up Doesn’t Rhyme with Best Is poetry that’s free as free as all That? Surely it’s the poet who is free Or not. S/he makes the choice to make a sprawl Of words (and punctuation?) dribblingly Straight (straight?) along the right-hand margin, or Elects to wander...
by phillipw | Feb 11, 2021 | FR, OR, PE
Mystic Incense Deployments Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The esoteric scent of peonies Belongs to aliens, to Czars’ domains, To empires now forgotten, Viennese Commanders with silk helmets on...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2021 | CH, FR, MA, ST
I Return in Steam Bath August to D.C. and the Divinity Student Walks me through Scrubby Mounds that Would Be Woods Natsu kodachi Hairishi hito no Ato mo nashi In the summer grove I go . . . and not a trace of Him, the man, remains ~Shiki The grove he walked me through...
by phillipw | Dec 30, 2020 | CA, FR, GR, LO
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He wasted love. He took and gave it all Around and wasted it. He took as much As anyone (almost) would...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2020 | CH, DI, FR, GA, Ho, LO, MA, SP, WA
When Washington Created Lasting Love on M Street, Georgetown Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You sum up everything I lost, An April made unending since we shared The cherry blossoms as in Pentecost,...
by phillipw | Dec 24, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, LO, MA, MO, PH, WH
Doppelgängers Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You almost smell despair of men alone When they have lost that one friend, that one near They found they loved as if a holy clone Had...
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 | Dec 8, 2020 | AS, FR, GI, GR, ME, RO, SK
Frilly Pleats and Blokes When Greek men dance in unison, their shoes Don’t dance like chorus girls’. Men’s feet, Too large for pretty grace, are like drunk crews Of slack-foot sailors. Men ignore the neat And opt for strength. Approximate stomping Will do. ...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2020 | DR, FR, SU, UN
Self-examination: Sapphire Nightmares, Indigo Ink on Pages By moving closer in my self, I learn. A dream or nightmare rises from the deeps As in the night I move in nearer, burn Their meaningless meanings from dungeon keeps Of soldered down subconscious. Sigmund...
by phillipw | Oct 27, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, GR, MO, ST
Memorial Maple A piercing red shouts out. The border’s end Is painful to the organs, heart, and mind, And eyes. It calls, “Forgotten is your friend, Forgotten through the year until I blind You with my raucous scarlet autumn leaves. You pass me every day...
by phillipw | Oct 23, 2020 | DE, FE, FR, PH, PS, SI
Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness Sigmund Freud: “There is nothing instinctual in us which responds to a belief in death.” Freud also says, “This may even be the secret of heroism.” Our hearts refuse to nod to death. No, more Than that, they fail to hear it...
by phillipw | Oct 23, 2020 | DI, FR, IN, LA, NI, PH, SY
Playing with Himself and the Piano Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Infernal Recurrence, more like. That Big Mind locked itself up in the bedroom of His hosts. A mad philosophical pig, He banged the...
by phillipw | Oct 12, 2020 | AN, EN, FR, GO, Ho, LO
Rulers without Culture and Without a Blind Poet “When a Prince lacks a Homer, it means that he is not worthy of having one.” ~ François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon “He knows the application of the book But not who wrote it; shuts it like a shot. Rather than read...
by phillipw | Sep 11, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, GR, LO, MA, ST
Friday Evening Mending through “Heavenly, Heavenly Music” Please tell me, Charles, what duties or what rites You want fulfilled while you are there beyond The living. Would the Sabbath candles’ lights On tables at the Gate enable fond Announcements from the grave or...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2020 | AS, FR, LE, SA
Refuse and Refuse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The refuse after war is what he had Become. The refuse after battle with His father but first the trash, the bad Boy, as the refuse after war. ...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | AN, CH, FR, GA, Ho, LO, MA, ST
Antarctic Odds The man I love . . . I carry weight along Horizons for his heart. The burdens are Not heavy and they are. A book with song, And song, and song I clutch to me as far As strides will go. The songs and book stretch out As if through snow,...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | BE, BR, CH, FR, JE, LO, MO, PH, PL
Presumption Who teaches us what love is, what it means? Who? No one. Many try, but none of them Succeeds. Some say it’s like quick benzedrines Without inhalers needed. Bethlehem Is touted as another meaning of This principle or feeling—whatever....
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AL, FR, SA, TH, UN
Thucydides: Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Because of the Human Thing” We forecast both the worst and best because The human thing is settled in the crux. Set there like...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AE, AN, FR, GO, GR, JA, MY, PO, TH
Three Thousand Years before Apple and Three Thousand Years after the iPad I carry in my knapsack poems by The ancient Greeks, the eldest ones, the best, The best of elders. They are still as spry As dolphins’ arcs by the Argosy’s quest. Lines wait within the safety...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AE, BE, ES, FR, NI, PH, PL
Nietzsche vs. Plato Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Nietzsche said that Plato was “the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced.” This Plato spoke in imagery so far Removed from Heidegger...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CO, FR, LO, RO, TR
France, the Ancient Place of Love “In the mid-fifth century [B.C.], however, a Greek at the Cap d’Antibes inscribed two verses on a black stone shaped like a penis: ‘I am Mister Pleaser, the servant of the holy Goddess Aphrodite.’” ~ Robin Lane Fox, The Classical...
by phillipw | Jun 25, 2020 | CO, FR, MO, TR
Defeat in Battle ………. True beauty is allowed to lapse to make Some room for what is novel, just the new, As if by definition modish ache Is better than the perfect pain. This skew Along to holiness of fashion runs The flopping risk of...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2020 | AR, FR, GE, GH
Smooth Contours are the Best Smooth contours are the best things in the world, The universe in fact. Who wants the straight When you can have the circular, the curled, The bent and curved? That box would be a crate (The Taj Mahal) without its graceful domes. If...
by phillipw | May 31, 2020 | CH, FR, GE, PA, Ta
Talleyrand by François Gérard: a Crippled Sonnet ……………~ commonswikimedia.org He isn’t looking quite askance at us From oils and frame. The gilt surrounding trim, The mouldings, desk, rectangle-rimmed canvas) Are as close as...
by phillipw | May 28, 2020 | CH, FR, MA, MI, Ta
French Cuisine There’s nowt like sour grapes to put men’s teeth On bitchy edge and that would do a lot To clear up why Talleyrand was beneath The others in the heap. He was warm snot– Or worse—to those he bested, if it’s right To use a word...
by phillipw | May 28, 2020 | AR, BI, CA, CH, DU, FR, MA, RA, Ta
Feline Thoughts on Pedigree The English, as usual not nonplussed By foreign aristocracy, impressed No, not at all by noble, upper crust, Unbishoped Talleyrand, were not hard pressed To sneer at Duc de Biron. After all, Detesting frog and wog, Brits would snigger At...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | BA, FR, JE, MA
Barraqué, Un Homme Piquant comme Moi Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The newer teacher didn’t know me long Before he asked, “You are a tetchy friend, Aren’t you?” Mais oui, I think that it is wrong...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AN, CH, FR
Full of Elegance and Truth: Fra Angelico’s Annunciation in the Prado [Look at the painting first? Go to the blue link immediately below. In case you don’t already know, Mary is nearly always dressed in red (because of Christ’s Passion)...
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 | FR, MA
The Perfect Friend The only perfect friend is one who died. Forever, now, he cannot disconcert Your expectations. With a manly stride He set himself apart. He let death hurt You. Agony became his only fault. It papered over other little sins. In fact that...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | DI, ET, FR, LA, MA, MI, MO
The Best Kind of Friend Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “ ‘Happy is the man who has dear children and sound horses and hunting hounds and a friend abroad…’ Solon, F23 (West)” ~ Robin Lane Fox,...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | ET, FR, LA, NI
Nietzsche Negation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Steel repetition trumps. Unnerved before Men’s ecstasy, rosaries cannot deny The urge for semen, chanting still the whore. Adultery invades the...
by phillipw | May 14, 2020 | CH, FR, GR, MA, MO, ST
A Mortal Passenger Close to Immortality I move now like a ghost who carries you Inside me. Others cannot see the real Me. Certainly they do not have a view Of you within me. Only slumps reveal The weight I bear because of beauty in My body, loveliness that you...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | DI, FR, GO, PS, Uncategorized
We Need More Enlightened Priests and Priestesses than Psychotherapists Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ernst-men-shall-know-nothing-of-this-t00336 The gods become...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | FR, LO, MA
Low Level Loves For most of us baize friendship is a low Replacement for the brocade kinds of love. It hums along, not singing. It is slow Compared to passion which is far above It, or at least in poetry it is. A man needs buddies, yes, of course, but they...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | AE, BE, CH, ES, FR, LO, MA, ST
Unforgotten Love Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If love were like best poems, it would last Forever, or as long as things that are not God Survive. But love is not quite perfect, vast, And...
by phillipw | May 11, 2020 | CH, FR, LO, MA, ST
Extremes with Charles “Time stutters in your arms. It expands, diaphragm pushing down and out to make room for seconds smoothing into hours.” ~ Jaime Mathis, “Blood Blister,” It Rises and Falls I now invite you each to call up in Your mind the most important...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | FR, GA, LO, MA, RO
Screens and Boundaries If trees sprout cinnabar and seas are gold, If lotus blossoms grow in gold and blue, If cranes strike poses by shrill suns as bold In red as rubies boiled in taboo, If cats strut round behind a smaller screen Of deeper crimson, older gold...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | CH, ET, FR, HE, Ho, LO, MA, ST
More Like Lightning He argued that her face was full of faults But perfect beauty was their startling end. Those imperfections listed were the vaults To her immaculate and lovely blend Contending with a theoretical Ideal. My lover, though, was more than that. His...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | CH, FR, MA, ST
A Perfect Piece of Knitting, Torn, Repaired “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” ~ 1 Samuel 18:1 Charles, my friend, was never so heartbreaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMvwFa0WzMk As when he...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2020 | AS, FR, IN, SA, ST
Intercessory Prayer and St. Francis of Assisi …………. I tried to hide my hands but God was more Manipulative than my ploy. He zapped Around with holy beams. He loved the gore, I guess. He thought that while my mind was rapt In mystic trance...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | CH, FR, MO, ST
Saint Julien-le-Pauvre, August 25, 2017, Dusk The icon held in holy dark behind The altar has a sacred candle lit In front of gilded beauty. Meaning lined Up from the flame agrees there on the armpit Of Christ in blessing. Steinway black and white Sends Chopin glory...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2020 | FR, RO
Intercessory Our love is like an orchestra that plays https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Petrushka%20chord&item_type=topic In two key signatures at once, or like Grieg And Chinese music mixing, a blaze Of orange tweed against silk’s pink, a league...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | CR, FR, MA, SP
They Loved Sovereignty and Liberty Most “And the Lacedæmonians offer sacrifices to Love before they go to battle, thinking that safety and victory depend on the friendship and those who stand side by side in the battle array. And the Cretans, in their line of battle,...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | FR, MA
Greek and Roman Thoughts on Amity Denial of respect to you is done— Accomplished—by male silence. You’re a man, Not some boy or woman. You’re someone’s son Produced in hopes that your appeal would span Long-recognized presumptions that a friend Unlocks his heart to...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | FR, LO, MA, WI
An Ancient Greek Trinity In Athens Love was placed in honor by Athena. There beside chaste wisdom, love Was set up on a plinth. The Greeks placed high In their gymnasia that god above Their bodies practicing for ideal power. Accompanying love there in that place Were...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | FR, GR, HE
Qumran Caves versus the Academy, Character by Character “Greek scribes could be inaccurate, unlike the meticulous transcribers of Hebrew scripture whose work was judged, character by character, by God himself.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets The...
by phillipw | Apr 2, 2020 | FR, LO
Always and Forever in Love I’ve been in love as long as I have known About such stuff: I’ve been in love with me. I’ve always sat on true romance’s throne Inside my heart. It’s true that I’ve been free Since teenage years to fall in love you, For instance, or with...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | FR, MA
Slapped in the Face with a Kipper “How much more agreeable it is for two male friends to live together than for a man and a woman.” ~ St. Augustine The problem with the saints is that they’re saints, Ignoring all the hints. They’re working out A...
by phillipw | Feb 21, 2020 | FR, LO, MA
Amor in Layered Ice “Every gathering is another heat wave against our foolhardy snow angels.” ~ Jaime Mathis The heart is an Antarctica despite The myths. Romance in glaciers and rocks Beneath them and in icebergs’ broken...
by phillipw | Feb 18, 2020 | FR, LI
Alert Discovering Americas inside Himself he never knew were there, he felt Apollo’s ranging thrust, Paul Bunyan’s stride Across their western deserts’ sagebrush pelt, Stepped out Atlantics and Pacifics, Lake Superiors, stretched canyons wider...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | AR, FA, FR
Facebook Pages I look at other people’s pages. Post, On post, on post. It is as if folk think (If that’s the word) that out there there’s a host Of hungry eyes so thrilled that they can’t blink Because of all the drivel there displayed To them by...
by phillipw | Jan 27, 2020 | FR
Cast in the Mould of Eternal Flame The law corrects the imperfections, flaws, And weaknesses of individuals. It can’t perfect them. Make as many laws As you might frame and still residuals Of cussedness will thrive like tares among Genetically engineered crops. Tell...
by phillipw | Jan 26, 2020 | FR
Philosophical Advice about Friendship Two thousand years ago and more smart men Began to write philosophy about Male friendship. What they wrote on scrolls, again, Again, again was that they had no doubt That perfect friendship could exist between Two perfect men of...
by phillipw | Jan 2, 2020 | AI, FR
Cuckoo Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Love Me and Leave Me to Die . . . Carry On, Carry On” ………… The soundtrack for the plague of AIDS became The music...
by phillipw | Jan 1, 2020 | FR
Friendship, Higher “the sun was rising now in fellowship with the stars that had escorted it” …………………Dante, Inferno, Canto I, lines 38-39 It sounds like pure companionship outside The entry...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | FR
Baked Alaska Our friendship is a strange confection, as Substantial, insubstantial as the best Things always are. Its fragile surface has A lightness to it; a simple bride, dressed In satin, springs to mind (easily torn), And then beneath that shiny crust,...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2019 | FR, WI
Oh, Fill my Veins with Sap of Curs! …..“and filleth with the blood of weeds” Oh, fill my veins with sap of curs! Distend My arteries with basest urges. Bloat My heart with commonest of strengths and send From it the humble lusts of ram and goat, Those fed on...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2019 | FR, LO
My Man If I don’t understand my man, much less Do I succeed in comprehending me. It is as if he plays a game of chess In three dimensions; now imagine we Are playing tournaments, but my board has A fourth dimension. That is how I feel About my...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2019 | FR
That Single Syllable That single syllable, that “friend,” turns out To be a complex concept, fraught, much more A metaphor, an emblem full of doubt, A stumbling figure of speech, a locked door Than some completely open beauty. Not Transparent, even;...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2019 | FR
Patriotism and Pals .. Francis Bacon, author of two .. early English essays on friendship, …………………..played a major legal role …………in the trial of his...
by phillipw | Dec 16, 2019 | FR, IR
When God Wants Our Destruction When God wants our destruction, He’ll just take Away all irony and French cuisine— Well, those and what’s involved in them, like steak And red wine sauce, and platters with obscene Things like snails in garlic glop, ortolan Inhaled by...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | FR
Charles-Maurice Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent, Abbé de Saint-Denis at Reims, Vicar General to the Archbishop of Reims, Member of the Assembly of the Clergy, Agent General of the Clergy, Bishop of Autun, Depute to the States General (National Assembly),...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | CH, FR, ST
Foggy I loved you once because you were a ghost, Or I was—who cares which? You did not scare Me, yet I frightened you. At least I boast Within my ribcage that the spectral flare Of whispering love produced subconcscious fear In your left lung—fear...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | FR, JO
Poor Prince Ionathan “and wept with one another, until David exceeded” — I Sam. 20:41 The frail leaf pages open to my touch; Another century opens to my eye. I wish the sentiments were just as much In favor now as they were...
by phillipw | Dec 11, 2019 | CH, FR, ST
Chasms The long years’ gaps between the times that you And I were born, our ages (ever spread) Will never be erased—till the debut Of death for one of us. I’ll go ahead, Statistically, since many thousand days And nights are quite a...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2019 | CH, FR, ST
“Think Only This of Me” I thought if I prayed hard enough about You, you’d summon thoughts of me. “Pathetic!” You are feeling. “Left me, then in a pout He daydreams that, as if an ascetic In desert meditation, he can Employ telepathy to make us saints Of...
by phillipw | Dec 8, 2019 | FR, KI, LO
On the Occasion of Edward II’s 700th Birthday—April 25,1984 On burning blue spring mornings such as this One, he would best have found his satisfactions In passionless ditch-digging with the bliss Of sun on neck and back,or, in actions Of sweat while making...
by phillipw | Dec 6, 2019 | FR
Hanging on the Cross “I have it on the highest authority that friendship is at least as great as heterosexual romantic love. ‘Greater love hath no man than this that he should lay down his life for his friends.’” ~ Phillip Whidden to Charles Randall Stanfield,...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | CH, FR, LO, RA, ST
Charles Randall Stanfield He made the sound that stars make, rushing through The sky, my sky at least, that one inside My chest. My ribs contain celestial blue, That wounded blue that’s made when stars collide (Just two of them) when crashing there within My...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR
Friendship’s Fall Green, green the autumn is. The oranges, reds, High yellows do their shouting thing; the greens Just hum along, as if on calming meds. Photographers scout round for fevered scenes To print with glossy flair. The subtleties Of varied...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
Cool Friend, Warm Friend; Easy Does it Friendship Sometimes the definitions seem less grand. D. H. Lawrence remarks, “I like him. What Else is there?” Friendship’s not a big demand. It doesn’t have to be a great big strut Of pledges and...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
But Francis Bacon says there’s almost no Such thing as friendship in the world, and least Of all between equals. Call him “bro”— He’ll turn into that foe we call the beast, Dite Derrida. The Christ called Judas, “Friend,” Received betrayal in a sexless kiss Because...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
Embracing Men’s friendship is love reduced to greed, true Covetousness dressed up as affection– Or so says Nietzsche. It is reduced to A South Seas cuisine of male confection, A sort of cannibalism in which The two sit down to swallow...
by phillipw | Dec 3, 2019 | BI, FR
Sad Substitute Those eyes, that mouth reminded me of Glenn, My friend of forty years now gone. The hair, Though, wasn’t crinkly thick. This specimen Was balding on the top, the strands too spare And thin to be a substitute for my Young man of fourteen...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2019 | FR, MA, MO
“O mes amis, il n’y a nul ami” “My friends, there is no friend!” Diogenes Laertius has Aristotle cry, Despairing of the chance that theory’s Demand for one who’s more than ally, Gives more than scratch his back and he’ll scratch mine Delight, is more than merely pure,...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2019 | FR, MA
Best at a Distance Some say that friendship’s realm is nowhere but Nostalgia. Love of man for man exists In regions where the friend is absent, shut Out, exiled, say, or better dead, subsists On mourning, loss, and echoes. Because if He is actually in the...