by phillipw | Apr 8, 2024 | AN, GR, JA, MO, RO
I Canali, un Pranzo, il Arsenale Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Romans, Japanese and Greeks once had A reverence, religious in a calm Way, quiet, for the clockwork things, the sad (The...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2024 | GR
Saw-toothed Tapeworms Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Despite how giant tortoise-like the years A man may live, his pains outweigh that length And they are harder shelled. They come with spears To...
by phillipw | Feb 8, 2024 | DR, FA, GR, NO
Creature of Compassion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Although in worlds outside of Asia some Might think that pink and green are linked to love Of softness, few think dragons might succumb To...
by phillipw | Dec 24, 2023 | BU, CH, GR, TO
Frankincense Thrones “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying . . .” ~ Luke 2:13 A spoken hymn it was — not sung. They spoke, Those angels, spoke those words, spoke far above Mere music. Right...
by phillipw | Sep 7, 2023 | AN, BR, CO, GR
Hemmed in by Their Beards The only women Greeks respected with The type of honor they accorded males Were Amazons. Though whether these were myth Or fact, or both, the sagas offered tales To teach young men that they should not forsake Ideals of manhood. When...
by phillipw | Sep 3, 2023 | AN, DI, GR, RA, RE, SE
The Ancient Gods in Perfect Geometric Shapes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The skyward gods (like levitating shapes Of gold) float flawless, utter in the air, The ether, far above their crimes and...
by phillipw | May 31, 2023 | AI, DO, GR, LO, OS, WI
Painting as Sacred Seduction Lord Alfred Douglas would have loved to sit For Basil Howard. Even more this lord Would certainly have forced his Wilde to quit The field of fever known as love and board The field of bankrupt slavery to pay The painter for the...
by phillipw | May 21, 2023 | AP, AR, GR, HA, SE
How Humans Came to Know Themselves “Know thyself.” ~ the pronaos of Apollo’s temple at Delphi Jeremiah 17:9 By juxtaposing paradoxes of Crabbed contradictions ancient Greeks called gods, Greeks learned to know themselves, thus taught that love And...
by phillipw | Apr 23, 2023 | AR, DE, DI, GR, PH, SC, Uncategorized
Figuring Futilely on the Death Date of Shakespeare “But thy eternal summer shall not fade” ~ Sonnet 18 The statue still defies his death or hers Two thousands years or more beyond the grave Or urn of ashes, shaping that prefers The perfect lie that, carving, Greeks...
by phillipw | Jan 17, 2023 | GR, RA, WO
The Young Soldier with a “Whimsical Stammer” “Good-bye to all music for ever,” wrote The poet, Siegfried. This was how his friend, His fellow officer and friend, caused throat In Siegfried, Heldentenor-like, to bend Towards tears because of the piano played By...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2021 | CH, GR, MO, Uncategorized
Archangels in the Moon Garden on Christmas Morn The flowers in whitest rows set forth their white Perfume beside the Great Rift Valley on The day that Christ was born. A rose’s might Is all that they can muster in this dawn Of Kenya. That is strong enough,...
by phillipw | Oct 24, 2021 | AD, AN, GR, JO, KE, LA, ME, OV, SI, SU
On First Looking into Ovid’s Metamorphoses For Adam Meister and Suyash Singh His hand was heart. His heart was hand. The hand Was heart and more. This hand was soul and mind. He learned that there are more than Sabbaths, bland And filled with trifling things like...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | BR, EL, GR, Ho, KE, LU, MO, PR
Elizabeth Taylor Never Managed Bangles to Compete with THAT Though class means one thing in Great Britain, class Means something else in Hollywood. It’s glitz There, glitz with gilding. Briefly, it means crass With Cadillacs and white fox fur with tits Concealed,...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2021 | GA, GR, LU, MA, MO
Feeling Like Eternity and Not Just the Golden Era That halo light from Hollywood shines down Across the decades. Garbo’s eyes still glow And Marilyn enwrapped in glitter gown, The sequins spangled, neckline cut so low The breast bone almost passed between those...
by phillipw | Jul 30, 2021 | AN, GR, NU, OL, RA, RU
Wearing Only Sunlight and Beauty, the Racer on the Track at Ancient Olympia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dressed only in the sunshine and his skin He steps as strongly as a stallion to The line. He...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2021 | GR, PO
“Poetry is idealized grammar” ~ Oscar Wilde An epigram is not required to be Grammatically as logical as laws Of science. If the bon mot holds the key To paradox, an ideal plants the cause Of poetry in fields of richer loam Although the weeds of words may interfere...
by phillipw | Jul 11, 2021 | BL, BU, GO, GR, IO, KI, KY
Born from the Genitals of Uranus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The eyes of Aphrodite are more blue, As blue as depths off Kythira, perhaps As pale as blue waves mariners see through Before they find...
by phillipw | Jul 11, 2021 | AN, AP, AR, GR, SC
Aegean Immortality Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The eye begins to wonder if the truth About Greek statues is that gods still sleep Within them, living, deep within their youth. The eye looks...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | AP, GR, MA, SP, SY
Accordingly The spirit of the peony is spring. The summer finds itself inside a rose. In May the petals, red and pink, both sing A colored fugue in fragrant ratios. The garden wings have gathered. Great tits leap As through the grandest canyon. Swooped...
by phillipw | Jun 2, 2021 | FA, GR, Ho
Fixative on White Watercolor Your hope is like a cloud—in a picture. While firmer than a cloud, your hope is bright And, yes, is fixed forever. Your stricture Keeps hope in place. A watercolor white Is painted on white paper—to make sure The cloud is white. Your...
by phillipw | May 11, 2021 | AN, CI, GR, Ho, MA, PA
Might Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In real man Greece the reason for the male Grown up in masculinity to be The one to be allowed to vote and rail Against opponents in a vote was...
by phillipw | May 4, 2021 | AR, DA, FA, FE, GE, GR, MA, SE, SO, SP, UN
Armpit and Genital Hair on the Masculine Anima Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The armpit hair of spirits is too dark For women. Females do not like to think Of it or get a glance of it as stark As...
by phillipw | May 3, 2021 | AM, AN, BI, GA, GR, ME, RA, SE, ZE
iOvid Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem What Ovid did two thousand years ago, The World Wide Web has lately caught up with. He did it many, many times. The slow Web has, at last,...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2021 | CA, CH, GR, Ho, ME, TO
Not as Certain as Dim Marble in the Nave We pause beside those tombs, the ones with white Carved marble hands in praying firmness there On chest and breast. They look to be contrite And will be ever so. The lordly prayer Is undermined since also there beside Him is...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2021 | AU, FE, GR, Ho, JO, SA, SE, ST
The Four Evils to be Overcome According to Saint John of the Cross: Joy, Hope, Fear, Grief The springtime brings her yellow joy on top Of green stems flaring. Then come pink and white Along the happy trees. We will not stop, They promise, even in...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2021 | CE, DE, FA, GR, OP, TE, ZY
Recognition Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Pick up a torch and carry it up high, And carry it throughout the world, and you Will find that fame is gilding as a sly...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2021 | AL, CR, DE, ED, FA, GA, GR, Ho, SC, SM
Wandering in Warriston Cemetery “Smith contracted diphtheria in November 1866 and, although he seemed to have recovered by Christmas, was then struck down by typhus. He died at home on 5 January 1867 at the very beginning of his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2021 | AE, AR, BA, GR, MO, SH, WA
Simplicity and Complexity The modern Scandinavians and chairs By Shakers have their meaning just because Of life’s complexity. The Cubist squares And glossed rectangularity give pause Like Philip Johnson’s house of cleanest glass. The house by Gropius in Lincoln...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2021 | EA, GR, MO, TI
Shifting Knowledge “Know thyself” ~ the temple at Delphi The earth is slowing down its turning on Its axis; so it seems, at least. The tides Have been impeding spinning since the dawn Of oceans and the sphere. Our planet rides Through vastest vacuum of...
by phillipw | Jan 18, 2021 | GR, MO, ON, PE, PR, UN
Monism Teaches Oneness 一如 (Ichinyo) Shirobotan aru no tsuki ni kuzurekeri The white peony; At the moon, one evening, It crumbled and fell. ~Shiki Translations are quite tricky things. They ask For huge commitment from the ones who try To make them. Those...
by phillipw | Jan 18, 2021 | AE, AN, BE, GR, MO, PE, SA
Rectitude and Beauty Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Matthew 6:28 The ant, a Puritan in black, moves right Across the petal’s purity. The black One works, works,...
by phillipw | Jan 15, 2021 | AN, DE, FA, FI, GR, PE
Withered Chances When just a boy, he broke the beauty, broke A peony. Then later, decades on He still remembered how he felt the choke Of anger like the pain a marathon Participant endures when he sustained His father’s wrath. It rankled still beyond...
by phillipw | Jan 1, 2021 | DE, GO, GR, JE
A Sparrow Falls in Eternity He felt a small, one moment’s stress when he Rode past the fox in Slough. The coach swept by It, beautiful, quite orange. Divinity Would also have looked down from God-filled sky Since He is everywhere. He would have seen The...
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 | AE, DE, GR, TH
The Darkened Sea Imagine, then, that salt waves draw the soul Of hyacinths, their purple fragrance down, The fragrance of high lilacs from rock knoll, And cliff, and pathway of an island’s crown To blue Aegean stretches. Purple falls To salt and blue. The...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2020 | CA, CE, CO, DE, FU, GR, MO, SM, TI, TO
Artless as L. S. Lowry A Rembrandt darkness falls upon us, they And me. I cannot see them now except As figures draped in richest robes. The prey Of time (called death) they’ve worn brocade and slept In sand beneath the ground, each separate plot Concealing...
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 | Dec 9, 2020 | BI, CH, EA, GR, IC, OR, TR
Declines and Declining Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The wood that makes the icons’ boxes lacks The holiness that throbs, still, through these saints And sacred ones. Despite the inner cracks...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2020 | CH, GO, GR, OR, PA, RE
They Never Slumber nor Sleep The reason icons break but still remain At crooked angles over slopes and cracks In eon landscapes is to entertain Their sacred irises. Greek mountains tracks Show off to icons ancient splits pronounced By earthquakes forty thousand times...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2020 | AN, GO, GR, PR, RE
“The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!” The icons looking over valleys down Beneath, and over hills across the way, Are placed to shine like jewels on a crown. This crown looks far to mountains where priests pray And past the harbors where boats wait before They...
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 | Nov 29, 2020 | AL, AN, DE, EP, GR, HE, IS, LU, MA, PH, PL, SE
Healthy Hedonism; and, Holy Hedonism, Paired Sonnets Healthy Hedonism Tattoo upon yourself this perfect law— The sacredness of pleasure is above The other, puny principles. The awe That it deserves, like God in love, Confirms that thrills, inviolate and...
by phillipw | Nov 12, 2020 | GR, GU, MA, SE
The Opposite of Trance Etheric this one isn’t. He is steep With hairiness and muscle like a Greek Guerrilla killing Nazis. Flesh is deep If worshipped. He is foreign to oblique. He wants to thrust and press his chest against His victim as he rapes or woos. A...
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 22, 2020 | AN, CH, DA, GR, HE, IS, JU, PH, RE
Darwin and Heraclitus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Homer should be turned out of the canon and whipped. He was wrong in saying : ‘Would that strife might perish from among gods and men!’ ...
by phillipw | Oct 10, 2020 | AU, CH, DE, GR, MO, ST
Forget the Graveyard’s Darkness and that Urn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Imagining that you are in the sky Above Antarctica or up beyond The Arctic’s ice consoles my heartbeats, high Among excited...
by phillipw | Oct 5, 2020 | AN, BY, CO, GR, PO
Snake Intestines in the Royal College’s Library of Constantinople Inked lines of Homer quilled inside a roll, One hundred twenty feet of words along A parchment made of serpent folds, a scroll From fabled serpents’ innards, softly strong, Was laid as almost...
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 | Sep 17, 2020 | AN, AS, GR, HE, JE, PY, TR
Infant Mild and Astyanax, the Son of Hector, Hidden in Hector’s Tomb Our western world begins its dating with The birth of one warm glowing baby. Glow And gilding in the paintings are like myth. They make truth truer. Little foot and toe On manger straw are our...
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 | Sep 9, 2020 | BL, CH, GR, LO, ST
Love Divine, All Loves Expelling When you were killed by lightning (yes, by God Himself—Herself, perhaps), voltage struck The Shenandoah River where that odd Thing, God’s strange love, took Charles. It ran amok That afternoon beneath the blackened sky, That bleak...
by phillipw | Sep 9, 2020 | CU, GR, MO, PA, PI
When Voices are Replaced by Squared Up Bars A watercolor, or some paintings made Of oils, or photographs in black and white Are all like Cubist art but with truth’s blade, Not brush. The forms, the shadows, and the light In images of island Greece, are grand...
by phillipw | Aug 2, 2020 | GR, MO, SO
Radioactive Requiems Grief, long and slow as radiation from The ancient rocks beneath us, does not fade. Instead it sends out pulses in a thrum Of rays reduced to an angstrom glissade Inside all protons dancing on the stage Expected to exist as long as stars. If...
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 16, 2020 | GR, MI, MY, OR, PR
Some Myths are Far More Real “Orpheus is a hero, not a god, and a hero more valuable than most gods, just as Prometheus was.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 21 The gods are less than Orpheus of Thrace. Gods loomed up large but they were never real. Majestic for a...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | AN, AP, DE, GR, PR
Ruined Myth and Heavy Reality Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The pillars look more like some backbones stripped Of skin and muscle than Apollo’s space In Delphi and are squat and stodgy, chipped And...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Poetry, Crime, and Government “Poets are the legislators of the world.” ~ Shelley The ancient Greeks still live. They are not dead. Their poetry from then speaks still upon Some pages on our shelves. The scholar’s head Refuses to let go that singing dawn. These...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | FE, GE, GR, HI, MI
Orpheus Sings Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “he sings to distract his shipmates from the irresistible lure of the Sirens onto the rocks” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 32 The Sirens...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AN, GR, PO, SA
Murmurs/Purling Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem [“Lo! I divine through murmurs borne The subtle thread of voices old” ~ Paul Verlaine, “Je divine, a travers un...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | AL, CH, DE, GR, MO, ST
Bitterer than Blue Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse I sleep with one black perfect curl beneath My pillow. It belongs to love. Below My blond, blond head this curl is like a wreath Of mourning. Blackness almost has a...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2020 | AN, GR, OR
Crushed Wings of Longing Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “Some say he was around sixty-three years old when he met his death” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets Much longer than the greatest poet I Have lived. We have no notion...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2020 | AG, DI, GR, SA, SO
The Central Singularity The blood of sadness is reality. The real stands far away from bloodless veins And not in shadows. No duality As Zarathustra saw it swells or strains Inside the marrow of the universe. Inside its bones where quantum physics seethes The...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | BL, EN, GR, PE, PO, SC, SH, TE, WI
Poets Are the Legislators of the Scientific World In 2011 I was reading a biography of John Keats. In the introduction Lord Byron is quoted as saying that Keats "belonged to that second-hand school of poetry" because he got his inspiration from...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | FO, GR, IM, MO, SE
Vacuum Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem His father died and Tony’s body dried Up, its oases withering to dunes Of numbness. Something shriveled deep inside. Bright pools of sexuality are...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | EF, GR, ME, TO
Across the Breadth and Height Across the breadth and height of England spread Out harshly on their slabs beneath the stained Glass, death, and honor men lie, with a head Of stone or metal, memory sustained Just barely in a chapel or a church, Cathedrals...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | CH, GI, GR, ST
I Used to Think Unfailingly of Charles When I Passed that Tree Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I pass the giant redwood limbs each day Still. Something’s altered. It is not the tree. It’s more I don’t...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | GR, KA
Sundown over Lake Baringo: A Birthday Sonnet The sun sank down through alcoholic drink. We talked as those high on chilled white wine tend To do. Her warmth, though, wasn’t just a pink Of bubbly (or twilight Pimm’s), but a blend Of purest, dulcet...
by phillipw | May 14, 2020 | GR, MI, OC, TH, WI
The Second Great Discombobulation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Put on your robes. Ascension comes, is nigh. The final time of Judgment’s mighty power Is looming. Turn your eyes towards the sky....
by phillipw | May 14, 2020 | CH, DE, GR, ST
Death’s Lepidoptera Sample Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem My face falls hard against the layered plush Cloth. Underneath is trapped his curly hair Inside a ziplock bag. My whiskers crush Themselves...
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 | AN, BO, DI, GA, GO, GR, HE
Inner Sanctums of Hole-iness Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The gods loomed more than superstars do now. The gods were more like legendary fire Behind a gilded curtain. They would plough A lad or...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | DE, GR, MO
Another World Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem One world we know about remains unknown. It may be turgid blackness or it could Be wide with spilling light. Perhaps just bone With empty marrow...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | AN, GR, PO, SA
There’s Old and Old “Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/; Greek: Σαπφώ Sapphṓ; Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω Psápphō; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos.” ~ Wikipedia “Most of Sappho’s poetry is preserved in manuscripts of other ancient writers or...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | EN, GR, WE
Two-edged Politics of Envy The denizens of public housing hate The people who support them paying tax At higher rates, who fund the welfare state. Recipients loathe winners to the max. The big time earners hate the ones who fail To make enough to pay their own way to...
by phillipw | May 4, 2020 | AN, GR, Ho
The Blinded Poet Sang The ancient Greeks were heartless beasts. They loved The slaughter in the Iliad, the rape Of women captured and subdued. Greeks shoved Themselves between those thighs and hips agape For domination by triumphant men. They gloated in...
by phillipw | May 4, 2020 | AN, DI, GR
Nuances in Curves “The Diadoumenos” in Daniel Schwartz, Metamorphoses/Greek Photographs, Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 1986 The light falls, slant. It falls in shadowed, dim, And subtle patches. It is like the gods Who sometimes hide...
by phillipw | May 3, 2020 | AN, DA, GR, MY
Icarus: When Cleanest Beauty Flies https://dd28.deviantart.com/art/Mourning-for-Icarus-294532709 When young men make mistakes, they still get all The glory. Here he is with nothing wrong About his body. It’s as if the fall Has killed him theoretically. This strong One...
by phillipw | Apr 22, 2020 | ET, GR, OR
Etymology of Orpheus If “of the river bank” is what the name Of Orpheus might mean,* then that might flow From jet slick River Hades and the shame Of failing to recover, to the glow Of life and sunlight, his lost love. Again It might refer to two of his five...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of ‘Song Culture’: archaic Greek poetry’” In ancient Greece the...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Daedalus and Icarus “The natural rhythms of Greek [poetry] tend ‘downward,’ falling” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 14 How strange it is to think that ancient Greek In poetry inclined to downward flow. We think that the trajectory was sleek In upward movement...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | AN, GR, MA
The Truth The ancient Greeks are there. They do not hide The truth about themselves like holy priests Of papal Rome. The Greeks adored male pride And loathed it. They were not pure logic’s beasts: They gloried in their contradictions, found Them, not...
by phillipw | Apr 11, 2020 | AN, GR
Also Sprach Nietzsche “ ‘Why did the whole Greek world exult over the combat scenes in the Iliad?’ asks Friedrich Nietzsche. We modern readers do not even begin to understand them ‘in a sufficiently “Greek” manner’. If we understood them in Greek, ‘we should...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | GR, PO
Primal ………. “As early as 500 BC, if we credit the images on Greek pottery, Homer and other poets were being read, not merely performed, by individuals.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets,7 When poetry existed in the mind And air and...
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 | Mar 30, 2020 | AN, AR, GR
Broad Marble Guidance Appropriating what we want from Greece Of centuries long, long past, we take the things We find uplifting. Statues white as peace Are chosen. Hermes lifts us up with wings That grow from swiftest feet. His beauty speeds Us up tabove...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2020 | AG, AN, GR
Classic Clarity Who’d want to read the ancient poets, myth And tales, because of facts? Aegean blue And empty temples, ancient gravesites with A beaten gold mask may be facts and true, But true enough? Excited Schliemann sends The king of Greece a...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2020 | GR
Computer-generated Reverence Achaean gods and monsters have been morphed, Becoming Hollywood and cartoon hypes. These pumped up Marvel heroes lately dwarfed The deities now turned to hollow types In most kids’ brainscapes. Disney, Warner Bros, And animation rule...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2020 | AN, GR, SC
Unexpected Metallic Mental Images Imagine being naked, turned to green Bronze, appliquéd with gold growths on your chest, And trying to look calm. The metal sheen Of gilding, coral-like, has coalesced Upon the semi-gloss of sternum, mounds Of breasts, and upper...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2020 | AN, GR, MY
We Innocents, Maidens, and Virgin Lads Waiting for the Minotaur More than slightly puzzled in a distant way By artefacts from long-gone cultures, we React as people always do when they can’t say Exactly what the ancients then could see In their religions and their...
by phillipw | Mar 26, 2020 | AN, GR, SC
An Infestation of Falsely Colored Barnacles on Thighs Like painted barnacles on bronzes from An ancient sea, our encrustations on Ideas from distant times and cultures come Between us and those statues from the dawn Of civilization. The Aegean As an emblem holds the...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2020 | AN, GR
Primal Hymns “Though we are seldom certain that a text is accurate, though we cannot approach its sound, invent its musical accompaniment and ceremonial, join the general audience . . ., or affirm that something that is said is literally true, we do...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2020 | AN, GR, PO, SA
Seance from Vellum “When we listen to the verse phrases and whole poems that have made that hard journey through time, space and language, … we are enthralled as much by what we cannot know as by what we hear.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets We read...
by phillipw | Mar 18, 2020 | AN, GR, SO, TR
He Won More Victories, With Hammering More Hard . . . and Better The greatest playwright of them all loved boys. https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/13481 Competitors loved prostitutes. Their whores Were high-class (mostly). Still their slippery joys...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2020 | AU, GR, MO
The Rim Falls written on the edge of orange leaves, Upon the curling crest of surfer’s waves, On Violetta’s lashes as she grieves, The falling salt of love, salt eyes by graves— Are stunning all. They lame the heart and lung, These autumns peer...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | GR, HE
[I suggest you read the title and then skip the bible verses and read just the sonnet below them. Then read the bible verses and re-read the poem.] Wound The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood ~ Joel 2:31...
by phillipw | Feb 10, 2020 | GR
Metallic Heroes Did not Dare to Turn their Backs Bronze swords, and shields, and helmets with their crests They wore while slicing men with wounds and death. The warriors wore bronze breastplates on their chests To save their lungs from being pierced so breath Would...
by phillipw | Jan 23, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Grammar as Salvation: Strabo, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Longinus and Demetrius Grammarians saved poetry for us. They saved immortal poetry that would Have died except they loved making a fuss About small points of style. This brotherhood Of...
by phillipw | Jan 20, 2020 | GR
Murmurs/Purling [“Lo! I divine through murmurs borne The subtle thread of voices old” ~ Paul Verlaine, “Je divine, a travers un murmure” in Romances sans Paroles] Just broken murmurs...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2019 | GR, HA
Arthur Hallam Arthur Henry Hallam Alfred, Lord Tennyson Deep grief refuses warping. You can fold It, put it in a safe-deposit box Protected by a speechless cipher, cold Steel doors with sleepless guards, and keyless locks, But grief still...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2019 | CE, GR, PE
Père Lachaise: Four Sonnets in a Sequence– A Visit to the Tomb of Frédéric Chopin; A Visit to the Tomb of Oscar Wilde; A Visit to the Tomb Abelard and Heloïse; A Message from the Grave of Jim Morrison A Visit to the Tomb of Frédéric Chopin Perhaps the worst...