by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | BI, BO, GA, HE, JE, JU, LO, MA, RA, ZE
The next two sonnets may offend some readers. If you think you may be offended, please do not read them. Painless Pleasure: Two contradictory versions of the myth of Ganymede “to be very eager in the pursuit of pleasure is to go hunting for pain…. ...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AE, AN, BE, ES, HE, PO
No Room for Unholiness not Cleansed “ ‘What would a man not give,’declares Plato in the Apology, ‘to engage in conversation with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?’ Can we do something of the sort? If not to engage in conversation, then at least to glimpse...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | HE, MI, OR, PL, ST
Misogyny (μισογυνία) is a Greek Word Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “What would a man not give to engage in conversation with Orpheus?” ~ Plato That marble minded Plato thinks of men, Not women,...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2020 | HE, JO, OR, PL, TH
Invisible Ivory Music Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. ~ John Keats Herus Pamphilius claimed that Orpheus’s drifting soul, destined to be incarnated anew in some other physical form after he had died, elected to be born a swan so that he...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | ET, HE, OR, ST
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 deaths...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2020 | AC, DA, GA, HE, Ho, MA
David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse Hephaestion, lover of Alexander the Great We heroize male anger, all the way From David’s chopped Goliath to the...
