by phillipw | May 10, 2024 | IN, ME
Do Not Fling Poetry into Foolishness The poet Merwin thinks about the whim That language uses us. He doesn’t say That this is just a playful notion. Slim That whimsy, though of course it’s fun to play With half-time silliness. Yet then the game Is quite another...
by phillipw | Nov 26, 2023 | IN, LO, UN, Uncategorized
Lunar Martyr Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He thought of just this one, this one, this one — Again — Again — AGAIN — as if insane With love, or something, powerfully as a gun That blasts away...
by phillipw | Aug 29, 2023 | IN, MA, MO
Helen as Pathetic 1950s Florence Nightingale A mother nearly stumbles in beside The beds, each boy in misery of flu As if in torture chambers. They have cried Themselves to whimpering sleep like kittens mew When dying. Husband also mashed down, slammed In fever,...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2023 | IN, OR, PO, RE
Among the Stench of Abasement, a Sonnet for Good Friday Where poetry is from is far away Or cavern deep, or both, or just a girl Who passes on the sidewalk, hair a-sway, Or even one full man whose hair is curl, And curl and curl persuading in their black, As black as...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2023 | AN, GH, IN
Oppositional Productivity Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Emotion is as difficult to free From poetry as cultures’ deepest faiths From superstition. It will have its spree Inside...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2022 | BE, IN, PH
Imported Curvaceousness Times Itself from India The pheasant came from Rome, the Normans, or From who knows where? The feathers of its coat Say they were from an Indian king, and ore From Rajasthan. Cock pheasants almost gloat With beauty from the golden copper of...
