by phillipw | Mar 1, 2021 | GI, IL, ME, MU, PH, SY
lluminated Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The secret bird refuses to be known. Its color is a flavor still unnamed, More like a smell than scarlet, a tone, Shennai in voice perhaps. It...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2021 | BU, GI, SA, WI
The Ancient Evergreen Did Not Become a Buddha Hotoke to mo Narade uka uka Oi no matsu. The ancient pine-tree Not yet being wise Buddha Is idly dreaming. ~Issa An ancient redwood lived its slowest youth So long ago that nothing else recalls It. Redwood mindlessness...
by phillipw | Jan 2, 2021 | GI, MY, SE
At Least among the Redwoods “Man is somehow out of place in ‘the brotherhood of venerable trees’[1] Yet they are meaningless without at least his absence.” ~ R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Autumn – Summer, volume 3, p. 842 Wallpaperup.com Among the brotherhood...
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 | Jul 20, 2020 | ES, GI, MA, MI, PL, SO, VE
Watered Down Wine and Esthetics “Gretchen Reydams-Shils (“Myth and Poetry in the Timaeus”) deals with Socrates’ puzzling remark that his description of an ideal state was like a painting.” ~ http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/ Socrates’...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2020 | AL, ES, GI, LI, SE
Gin as Tonic It moves like hypnotism down the throat, Like fuzzy ecstasies that stroke the tongue Along their way. A beauty soon begins to bloat The brain like sugared peace and mist among The nagging weights, those boring days, the nights Of brownish...
