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 7, 2024 | JA, NI
James Points the Way to Future, Foreign Adventures My plane takes off not quite as bumpy in That flight beyond the crabgrass at the end Of runway launch as Piper Cub wings win The sunshine wind of Florida, extend Their grip and take us jostling through the air Above a...
by phillipw | Oct 15, 2023 | JA, SA, Uncategorized
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Japan has gods. They know their place. Their place Lies set in leaves and flowers, in anger’s sea. These gods all know one law of Stoic face And steel, as rigid as those...
by phillipw | May 9, 2022 | CH, HA, JA, PO
Burden Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem All the cherry blooms I saw today have become A pink load on me. ~ Sobaku [freely and unfreely paraphrased by Whidden] Sobaku’s postscript to his painitng...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2022 | AR, CO, JA, ME, PA
Cherubim Etched in Gilding Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Back then world was filled with gold, gold skies. The angels’ wings were tiny, but they flew. Two cherubim in gold attract our...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, JA, LO, NO, OL, RU, ST, UN
Trinity’s Anchorite in Gentle Agony James Strachey, lacking goldsmiths’ stunning hair, Sat by his non-gold fire alone inside His Cambridge room and felt the flare Of shrined romance within his ribs. It dyed His arteries and veins the color of A soul in...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2022 | BR, CU, GA, HA, JA, ST, UN
Cool as a Thick-haired Cucumber “I have need to busy my heart with quietude.” ~ Rupert Brooke James suffered like a teenybopper lass In love with manufactured pop star guys. He hovered like an altar boy at mass Outside the poet’s rooms. He hoped his eyes Would...
by phillipw | Mar 5, 2022 | BR, JA, NO, OL, SE, ST
A Hovering Sexual Position Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The poet, Rupert Brooke, felt trouble with Deciding what his sex position was. He listened to his gay friends’ favorite myth...
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2021 | BR, GA, Ho, JA, LO, RO, RU, ST, UN
A Solitary Fire In bobby socks the teenyboppers used To sigh or scream about a baritone, Or tenor, or falsetto voice. Amused, Their objects of desire jived through a zone Of smugness like a phoenix on its pyre. Before these screeching fans, young...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | BU, DE, HU, JA, MI, SA
If macho stars are doing sex with men, That must be covered up. Mere Vaseline Across the lens won’t do. It’s cock and hen That’s right for Hollywood. Shut down the scene If Marlon Brando kisses Dean and/or The other way around. Rock Hudson’s Day Is just for show. ...
by phillipw | Aug 26, 2021 | GA, JA, MA, WE
Wesley Marley Had the Third Largest Private Collection of Jazz Recordings in the World and Played Them on a Huge Stereophonic Sound System He knew a charismatic peace inside His mother’s living room and in between The ganging giant speakers there beside His shoulders...
by phillipw | Aug 9, 2021 | DE, JA, MY, PH, SC
Esthetic Ricochet A room with gilded sliding screens is flown Through by a swallow. It swoops in and out So swiftly that the moment makes a throne Of thrill and beauty. It is like a shout From Christ or Buddha, utter and so brief That brevity...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2021 | CH, JA, OR, PA, PE
Distance is Prophecy Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The distance is attached to futures or A future. In the watercolour scene The distance and the future both...
by phillipw | Jun 28, 2021 | AM, CL, EI, HA, JA, KO, PA, VA
Haiku Paradox The Korean boat does Not pause. Sails cause it to pass, But where in this haze? ~ Buson Forking into mist A stream on the moor is vague And clear, both, at once. ~ Shirao An odd boat, foreign in its shape, slips past, Korean in its shape and...
by phillipw | May 30, 2021 | BA, JA, PO, ZE
Sado Island Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A haiku does not aim for beauty. In The essence of the poem beauty waits. A prima donna stays behind the thin Wing curtains. ...
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 | Jan 30, 2021 | DA, JA, MO
Phases Fading Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The passing rain is Drying on the day-glory Which will die tonight. ~ Shiki The rain takes little care while dropping on The blossoms of the...
by phillipw | Jan 30, 2021 | DA, JA, MU
January Daffodils The daffodils are shouting up above Midwinter snow. They shout Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! HA! And Happy! Happy! HAPPY! All in love With yelling yellow, filling snow with awe Of promises of spring, blooms feel quite smug That they have sprung up there...
by phillipw | Dec 23, 2020 | AN, JA, ME, SA, ST, Ta
Fabulous Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The ancient Japanese sword-makers bent Bent, coaxed their steel, more thousands of plies, than Rehearsing swordsmen slashed their blades. ...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2020 | AN, BA, EU, HA, JA, LY, ME, MU, MY, OR
Lyrical Light and Annihilation The harp is not of heaven alone. Its strings Have been to Hades on the saddest trip. A gilded harp may seem to have the wings Of Hermes. It may ride an Argo ship Which has one eye to see its way to fleece And gold, to beauty’s...
by phillipw | Oct 28, 2020 | BR, CO, JA, PO, RO
MENSA I have a lack of knowledge that is quite Encyclopedic when it comes to “pop” (Pop culture stuff). I like more erudite And highbrow matters. Tracks like “Lollipop, Oh Lollipop, Oh Lollie! Lollie!” can’t Appear on radar screens for me. Some lines From...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2020 | BR, JA, JO, MO, PO, TH, WI, WO
Thoreau in His Worst Freudian Nightmares Could Not Have Imagined Pollock or de Kooning Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Thoreau says nature does the better part Of work oak carpenters get credit for,...
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 19, 2020 | IM, JA, SC
A New Heaven and Undirtied Earth For James Reis Forget the “thought” of Plato (Socrates) That stories, plays, and poetry can cope With only pasts, and now, and futures. Seize The truth instead. Create a newer scope By setting works in time that’s never been, That...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | CO, GO, JA, ME, OD, PE, SA, SO, WI
The Big Exceptions The women move in caged in places both In life and plays. In poetry they are Curtailed to Sappho and Corinna. Troth Constricts Penelope. It hems. No spar To take her seas away, she sits at loom, Is trapped at night unpicking her trapped work,...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2020 | EU, JA, OR
If Orpheus Had Not Looked Back Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If Orpheus had not looked round, his wife Would not have fallen back to death. He would Have had her all his unheroic life. The Argosy...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2020 | JA, MA, ME, MU, OR
Dissonance in Early Poetry Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse The primal poet sang at Jason’s feast, At Jason’s wedding to Medea. Gods Are vile: the marriage’s allure deceased As Orpheus’s melody, at odds With fate, began to fill...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | AR, GA, HE, Ho, HY, JA, JO, LE, ST
Herakles, the Greatest Greek Hero, Outshone His Junior, Jason (a Bright Star), in All Majestic Ways John Keats perverts the “bright star” image. First An ancient poet wrote that Jason shone, “A bright star,” such as one that brides would thirst For, brides-to-be,...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | CH, DA, JA, NI
Heaven’s Gate That moment when my uncle fell beneath The rearing horse, was crushed beneath its weight, Destroyed Thanksgiving and the Christmas wreath— That wrecked. Cracked bone horrors can dislocate Time, times, and the dividing of time, swell Time...
by phillipw | May 11, 2020 | AB, JA, PO
From the Enlightenment to Gazing at a Dark-haired Navel...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | AC, CE, CH, ED, JA, MA, ME, RE
More Widely Sage than Plato Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A cave as classroom with a centaur (wise And just) as teacher is a place to learn, Surpassed by none. They straddled with their thighs...
by phillipw | Apr 26, 2020 | BE, JA, JO, PA
The Threat and Weightiness Held in that Silver Divination Cup “let this cup pass from me” ~ Matthew 26:39 The brothers tore their robes. Radiation Of fatal force came throbbing from the cup. Death and doom were theirs, not mediation. The knife blade fate demanded...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | JA, MA
Dickinson and Other Obscurities as Sunspots However forgettable you find your voice to be, you hover on the surface of the sun. ~ Jaime Mathis … Like Emily you let the others tell Your hymn-like verses’ quality and state. You wait for others’ to...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | JA
The Synthesizer in Rare Books and Music in the British Library The sterness of his haircut and his face, Especially the cruelty in the height Of manly cheekbone, the studious place (Rare Books and Music Room, a lamp with light So harshly aimed at...
by phillipw | Oct 17, 2019 | BE, JA, MA
Male Harmony Makes Heaven How holy is the true light when it falls Across his head, his polished golden strands Like golden angel hair. Their gloss recalls The Christmas trees of childhood as he stands There singing in the dark carved wood of choir And stalls among...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2019 | CO, JA, MA
The Third Largest Personal Collection of Jazz Recordings in the world: He Kept it Clean No Liberace ever glittered here In Titusville. He never lost a ring Of amethysts and gold at Sand Point pier, Or platinum and diamond-bright bling At Little League in hell-fired...
by phillipw | Aug 28, 2019 | JA, ME
I’d Bed You on the Golden Fleece, But… I bed you on the Golden Fleece in dreams. Romance is strong as Jason. Strong as love Is sorceress Medea. Woman’s screams As he impales her rise so high above His gruntings that he almost disappears In nothingness. A...
by phillipw | Aug 15, 2019 | AP, JA
Hipsypile, Medea, and the Ascending Star Twice Apollonius compares the man, That hero, Jason, to a rising star, A strong one in the dawn or dark. Scan The lines: two women lusting for him are Not praised for stellar loveliness. At best Each comes presented as a...