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...
