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 | 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 | Jan 14, 2022 | AD, KE, MA, MO, PE, RO, RU, TH
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...
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 | EM, Ho, KE, LU
What Movie Stars Can Never Be Enchantment is a slavery to stars Of sweatless screens, the cinema, tv, Or Netflix, or on smartphones. Out on Mars Stars walk around, and though that’s stupid, we Watch on. We know that we are lacking like Some Sad Sack clown. An...
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 | 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 21, 2021 | AN, CO, DE, DI, FA, FE, FU, HE, KE, PE, SE, SK
Coffin, Bed, Whatever He used to have a black nacrotic ____ But now, because of you, it swells again. It pulses and is desperate to _____ Out words and symphonies so full of pain That laughter is the only option. ____ Is there if you desire it in your throat. If...
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 | Aug 2, 2020 | AN, GA, Ho, IN, KE, PR, RE
Some readers may find this piece offensive. If you think you might be offended, please do not read it. Conversion at the Cliff Edge of the Great Rift Valley Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Beyond...
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 | 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 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 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 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 | 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 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 | KE
Misogyny and Class Warfare We took Keats’ life to be a taller ship Of Poetry, Romance, and High Ideals, But now we know through Motion’s scholarship Keats danced to rather boorish, common reels, Not only rules for minuets and verse. He hated women when he...
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 | Jan 23, 2020 | CA, KE, ST
Keats Walked Here The mountainside outshines the twilight force Above the highway and its cars. Their glass And chrome presumably reflect the gorse, Dark green and yellow, from the mountain pass Back up, but weakly; colored echoes are Too feeble. Bog plants made...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2020 | BR, KE, ST
So Keats was Wrong So Keats was wrong: a star is not so firm Or steadfast as a lover’s sonnet yearns For it to be. In fact, his urgent sperm Was probably more loyal and his tears For Fanny Brawne more strident than two bright, Twin stars. Besides, some stars...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | KE, RI, VE
Keats, Rimbaud, Verlaine Day after day I sit and write French verse Forms, villanelles and terzanelles. At noon I leave the British Library. “Much worse Existences,” I say, smugly, “are strewn Across the urban universe.” Today I noticed from the bus Paul...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2019 | KE
Keats’ House before Arthur A meager air like dimmed eternity Pervades the scene. The purple of the spikes Of crocuses is like an undersea Phenomenon in coral depths the likes Of which John Keats could not have seen Or conjured in his poetry. But still This...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2019 | KE, PO
The Political Poet I really LUV the way they try to see A poet’s politics. The latest life Of Keats puts forward a pitiful plea To think of him as if the loving strife Inside him isn’t quite the point. His heart And lungs were doomed and we’re supposed to care...
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 29, 2019 | BR, KE
Black Flightless Widow “I have not got over it and I never shall.” ~ Fanny Brawne He died and then the girl Fanny soon Keats on his deathbed Fell ill. Her spirit’s heart contrived to take Its toll upon her flesh. A black cocoon...
by phillipw | Aug 11, 2019 | KE
One Brilliant Spot on a Poet’s Pillow [It used to be that there was a notice in Keats’ House, Hampstead, London, beside the bust of John Keats set on a pedestal that said that it had been tailor-made to make the top of the bust reach exactly to the height...