by phillipw | Feb 11, 2024 | AL, JO, MI, PA
“The mind is its own place” ~ Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 221-270, John Milton The mind creates its own space/time inside A rumpled space in skulls. The gravity In that dimension grows as long and wide As heaven and hell to hold depravity Of atom bombs and...
by phillipw | Sep 14, 2023 | JO, KE, SA, SI, ST, TE
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “…very witty and intelligent and divinely beautiful….But, alas, very fragile.” Siegfried Sassoon writing to Henry Festing-Jones...
by phillipw | Jan 26, 2023 | CL, JO, Uncategorized
Can Freedom Be a Creed? So…never mind twinned paradox (yet not Just two-word oxymoron). “Freedom ruled,” Is what the English peasant poet taught. This writer did not need his knowledge schooled. John Clare, he should have been called Clear. ...
by phillipw | Sep 4, 2022 | CO, DE, JO, KE, PO, RO, SP, TU
Autumn and the Spanish Steps Though waiting for the wind so long, the leaves Know patience, or at least they know no dread. The autumn wind is patient, too, perceives Their stoicism wearing orange and red, October yellow even, brighter in Their bravery. ...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2022 | EL, FE, JO, SM, WH
Godly Stones Crying Out “to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness” Leviticus 16:10 The prophet’s tongue is loose. It waggles, this Direction, that. It solemnizes truth, Then censures it. It gives Jehovah’s kiss But then his condemnation. God...
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 30, 2021 | DI, GA, JO, LU
As If Mingled Throughout our Air Yet Distant, Distant, Distant Elusive as pale pulsing ghosts that hide In Galliano robes, stars’ glamour shifts From seeming to enchantment. Like a bride Suspended in a galaxy, glow lifts And levitates. The stars and starlets...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2021 | BR, CH, JO, MA, MI, NU, RU, SK, SW, VI, WO
Skinny-dipping with Rupert Brooke, Sturdy as a Marlowe Stanza or Miltonic Ones, in a Night-time Cambridgeshire Pool Virginia Woolf had seen him. She had seen Him whole. She saw his soul, good-hearted, kind, Substantial. She had seen him leaping, clean, More clean...
by phillipw | Apr 26, 2021 | JO, MA, PR
Implacable Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The sea is as deepe in a calme as in a storme.” ~ John Donne, Sermons, Mundus Mari “If hypothetically Mount Everest were placed into the trench at this...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2021 | CO, DE, JO, KE, ST, TU
Sovereign Keats Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm: That is the top of sovereignty. Hyperion II 203 To accept all With...
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 26, 2021 | CO, JO, MA, NE, NO, RA, TE, TV
Forget About Your Duties, Journalists Not everything must be about the spiked Coronavirus. Tell the media And they would laugh. You see that they are dyked Up, blocked bowels. Encyclopedia Materials imply ten thousand things That could be focused on instead, but,...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2021 | HE, JO, SN, TH, WH
“A universe of sky and snow!” Philosophy can’t clip an angel’s wings. At most it might pluck out one pinion white As purity in Jesus. Thoreau sings, Denies that he and God were in a fight— I didn’t know we’d ever quarrelled— speaks The dying man. He loved a...
by phillipw | Jan 17, 2021 | AE, BE, DE, ES, HA, JO, PE
Sheer Vanity Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem It isn’t just a little happy face, This flower, though fat and happy this one is. Because of gorgeousness and grinning grace, It glories in...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2020 | CH, EP, FL, FR, JO, OT, PH, RO, SP
Epiphany not Abruptness A mamba crosses paths with you. A shark Fin heaves to view in nearby waves. A plague Ramps out across the world. A winging lark Explodes from cover at your feet. No vague, Uncertain certainty like fate explains The threat, the...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2020 | AN, FE, HE, JO, LA, PA, PR, TH, WH, WI, WO
Presence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The past is never past, is more than ghost Or Undead creature. Passed away the past Is not. It lives within. Its whispered boast Inhabits mental...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2020 | BR, CH, FA, GA, HA, HE, Ho, JO, KE, LO, RO, ST
A Quieter Love Knot like Keats’ and Fanny’s Hair Woven in Cameos A quieter thread of memory wrapped and clung To images, those shins I leaned against As jazz laughed over us, or we’d sung While standing side by side; our shoulders sensed Each other even though they...
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 | CH, DI, JO, KE, PL, PR, SO
True Love For Charles Randall Stanfield Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “I can never feel certain of any truth but from a clear perception of its Beauty.” ~ John Keats...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | IN, JO, KE, PL
Sing in Me, Rational Muse! Plato’s “descriptions of poetic inspiration occur over a long period of time, ranging from his earliest works to his latest, and there is considerable uniformity in what he says. Throughout P.’s work the mental state of the inspired poet is...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | JO, KE, OD, PO
Stunned, Stung with Esthetic Tears “When it reaches Alexandria, poetry comes in out of the sun, retires to the library . . . And so it [poetry] survives in a world where the vulgar tongue is not Greek.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 19 At Florida Technological...
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 | Jun 30, 2020 | AL, BY, GE, Ho, IS, JO, KE, LO, WA
Crippled Poets Among the earliest of lines to spring And linger utterly till now are long Ones drawn from blinded eyes. The verses sing Like prophets’ spirits which must see. A song Of guts, the gods, and marrow-spills came out From manly depths behind the...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | AN, AT, JO
Treasures from the Wreck of the Unrecoverable Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Athenaeus quotes more than ten thousand lines of verse in it, many not preserved or attested elsewhere.” ~ Michael...
by phillipw | Jun 12, 2020 | BY, GE, GO, HA, Ho, IS, JO, KE, PO, WA
Crippled Poets Among the earliest of lines to spring And linger utterly till now are long Ones drawn from blinded eyes. The verses sing Like prophets’ spirits which must see. A song Of guts, the gods, and marrow-spills came out From manly depths behind the...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | BA, CH, JO, LU, MU, PA, SA, WE
The Music Historian “Johann Sebastian Bach: the Story of the Development of a Great Personality (1909), [was] rated by The Times as his most important book” ~ Wikipedia Nobility and grandeur at the height Of music, that is what the boy was taught By Wesley. ...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | BA, CH, HU, JO, MU, PA
At the Solitary Age of Twelve— Seven and Twelve Being Holy Numbers The first of seven early music books Reveals a boy methodical as Bach. He studies Bach’s first 48. He looks In detail, analyzing. “Let us talk,” He seems to say, “Just you and I alone. You...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | AN, AU, BA, CH, HU, IN, JO, LU, MU, PS
Psalm 130 From out of depths of sorrow came the sounds Of Parry’s anthem (first of all) “In my Distress.” The music came from deep chest wounds Und Bach and Luther. Anguish reaches sky And heaven only when the music climbs From sources such as...
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 20, 2020 | JO, KE
Virgins in Self-sacrificial Auto da Fé Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem John Keats on his deathbed. ~Joseph Severn “His ‘magic’ does not take account of what cannot be known.”* His beauty does not care...
by phillipw | May 19, 2020 | AD, DA, JO
Banjul…We Are Very Far Apart I’m at the margin of your universe. In fact, I’m banished past the boundaries of It, out in outer darkness. I am worse Than lines sans meaning, meter, rhyme or love, So far as your concerned. The galaxy That forms the center of your...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AD, DA, JO, LO, RO
On Waves of Song Relief comes in as slowly as a tide On gentle coasts but feels as urgent as The tidal bore up Severn. Hope had died Until you spoke and now I feel like jazz Is jiving in my bones. The slowness came Because my heart was made of numbness, so My...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | AD, DA, JO
Secondhand Frank John handed me a jacket of the sort They call a fleece in England, made of mild Beige man-made fiber looking like a short And curly lambskin. Then perhaps he smiled Though what that meant I would not know. I tried it on because it was a...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | BR, CO, JO, VI
Johnson Beharry Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “what is ideal in him is the beauty and freshness he embodies” ~ Jacob Burckhardt commenting on the ancient Greek hero...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | BU, DI, EM, EZ, JO, KE, KH, OM, OR, PE, PO, RA, RO, SA
The Bones of Orpheus, the Hair of Keats Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If we collected poets’ body parts And put them in glass cases, would the world Adore them there like saints? Pickled hearts Of...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | BO, DR, JO, LA, PA, PH, WE, WH, WI
Recurring, Not Forgotten Florida Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The childhood cosmos that returns in dreams Is full of butter suns, smooth, yellow, bright. The light is not like melting candy creams...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | AD, AU, BO, CA, JO, JU, MA, NA
Modern Improvements I find it faintly droll that Caesar had No clue about Napoleon and Hitler, that Augustus never knew how ultra bad That Mao and Josef Stalin were. How flat Those Caesars would have felt if only they Had known how pipsqueak they would seem compared...
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 | Apr 22, 2020 | JO, LA
The Aroma of Myrrh and the Beloved of John “Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” ~ John 11:39 (KJV) “he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | AC, AL, AN, DA, HE, JO
David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Hephaestion, lover of Alexander the Great We heroize male anger, all the way From David’s...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2020 | AP, DU, JO
Mellow Voiced like Perfection I remember well the first day that we Met. It was Sabbath yellow, white and blue, A summer’s afternoon of sanctity Because of God—and then because of you, Your sister and your parents. Hours of sun And brightness in the sky, a holy day...
by phillipw | Mar 1, 2020 | BR, FA, JO, KE, ST
The Hard Truth: Keats The myth rides gently on that wasting death. Consumption weakened him as if a spell Were cast by Tories hating lines with breath For weaker ones among us. He was well In brain and soul, this little giant filled With all nobilities, this...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | JO, KE, SE
Abandoned by All but Two: Joseph Severn & Immortality The man who sailed to Italy with Keats Was chosen just because he was the one Available. Deaf circumstance defeats Our friends. Concerns about the family stun Some men who otherwise might offer us Their...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2020 | JO, KE
Firm Fluidity The sunlight wavers from the ripples down Below. The surface of the fountain in The square beneath his deathbed cannot drown Keats’ poetry. The wavelets’ discipline Had killed his writing earlier, before He saw their wavering refractions on...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2020 | BR, FA, JO, KE
The Jewel a Bright Star Gave Him . The lover holds carnelian between His thumb and finger (far too late to write More poetry), then palms it there to lean Against his lifeline. If the stone is white Or red like blood that turns away from life Is well beyond God’s...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | DI, EM, JO, KE
Unfinished Symphonies All lives are incomplete, not just the life Of Keats—or Emily in Amherst locked In circumstance. Chance wields the palette knife And even genius finds its choices balked By limitations of the oil paints That fate provides. The colors on...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | JO, KE, SE
The Final Leg of John Keats’ Journey to Death [John Keats, in case you didn’t know already, died of TB when he was very young. In a desperate attempt to save his life, his friends subscribed money to send him to live in Italy. This ploy failed and he died...
by phillipw | Feb 9, 2020 | AD, DA, JO, LO, RO, UN
When I Wake Up, I am Absent from Thee ‘As ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.’ 2 Corinthians 1:7 Two continents and long tides far away You live alone now and we sleep apart. The beauties of my high spec life hold sway,...
by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | JO, KE
The Entry into the City of English Poets We see him heated, agitated, full Of passion as a poem fills a page, As stern as Christ with money changers; skull Not visible but there as if a rage Resents the hair and flesh and skin And mouth, the opening between the bones,...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2020 | AD, DA, JO, LO, RO, UN
The Rest is Silence A vacuum-like presence fills my veins, My arteries, my heart, yes, mostly in My chest. These vessels for my blood have stains Still where pulse used to course. Each ulta-thin Tattoo that love has mottled on their walls Is ugliness made up...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | JO, KE, KI
March 1819 John strolls alone along spring’s English streets. He sees a kitten being tortured by A boy, a butcher’s boy, and fights and beats Him, thrashes him. Just over five feet high, John intervenes when others might have left The beef-slab bully to...
by phillipw | Dec 30, 2019 | DE, JO, PR
Josquin des Prez Polyphony of beauty and of voice Without obscuring instrumental sound Made churches of the Renaissance rejoice And made Josquin des Prez’s chansons bound From palaces to houses of the whores. But where is Josquin now? He carved his name...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | FR, JO
Poor Prince Ionathan “and wept with one another, until David exceeded” — I Sam. 20:41 The frail leaf pages open to my touch; Another century opens to my eye. I wish the sentiments were just as much In favor now as they were...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2019 | JO
The New Trump Wall with its Foundation in Gun-totin’ Texas: A New Way to Remember JFK We know now that the Dallas bullets weren’t Jihadi driven shots. This Micah guy (Just from his name, this Micah Johnson) burnt That sort of slander, blasted it sky high. He fired...
by phillipw | Oct 31, 2019 | JO
Yeah? So What? “Every joy wants eternity/ Joys want profound eternity” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, The Second Dance-Song If every joy wants to be without An end, that’s sad, yes, sad like Skelton as The Clown. The Clown can sweep around and...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2019 | JO
Severn and Tennyson as Memorialists Let us now praise famous friends. We begin With Joseph Severn, brushing time away With immortality in John Keats’ chin As poetry lay dying. In the sway ……………. John Keats on his deathbed Of brush the...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2019 | GO, JO, KE
The Hard Truth The myth rides gently on that wasting death. Consumption weakened him as if a spell Were cast by Tories hating lines with breath For weaker ones among us. He was well In brain and soul, this little giant filled With all nobilities, this genius...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2019 | JO, KE
John Keats ‘the last lineal descendent of Apollo’ ~ Arthur Hallam The inmost soul of poetry is Keats. Its spirit is derived from locks of hair And curls about his temples. Muse’s seats In heaven rock with wonder and despair When goddesses consider...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2019 | AD, DA, JO
Darwin, Sickness, and Venice My recollections made from you and of Our time together are too much like ghosts Of gondolas. They move in fogs of love And far too fast in haze between the posts On either side of grand canals. There black Gesticulations of the water...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2019 | DA, JO, SI
Yawn No messages (or meaninglessly brief Ones) make romantic oceans dry to salt. The tree that first proclaimed a heart-shaped leaf Withers. The swift-hoofed race comes to a halt, The red stallion stumbling, breaking a leg. The killing isn’t murder,...
by phillipw | Sep 17, 2019 | JO
…..Johnny Lantz II …………………………………….tenor.com He lies there, stupidly, while trying not To fall asleep, with glossy earphones at His neck as if he’s hoping that some hot,...