by phillipw | Jan 27, 2024 | GA, Ho, KA, LO, LU, MA, NE, RO, UN
Unlike You and Him There seemed a time (if time can merely seem) When we soared parallel, so did not touch, The lack of touching sinful as a dream (Though close the lack of touching hurt too much And so I had to comment face to face With little gifts of...
by phillipw | Jun 14, 2022 | AR, LE, LU, PA, RI, RO, VE
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Lucien Létinois Verlaine’s emotions are too distant, far Removed and cleft from violets of verse He filled French veins with, each line a devoir Of sorrow, since his feelings were as terse As AK-47 rounds. His lines Were written out like blade...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2022 | CA, FL, HI, LU
The Heavenly Choir after It Fell on Florida The spider web comes Hot against his face; August In damp Kulaqua. In Florida humidity comes full On like a curse. A thunderstorm comes down In swashing curtains made of wet warm wool. A coolness follows but then comes...
by phillipw | Sep 30, 2021 | LU
As If Mingled Throughout our Air Yet Distant, Distant, Distant Elusive as pale pulsing ghosts that hide In Gallino robes, stars’ glamour shifts From seeming to enchantment. Like a bride Suspended in a galaxy, glow lifts And levitates. The stars and starlets shine...
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 29, 2021 | Ho, LU, PL
A witch in Port au Prince or something like Her hints the spell required. This spell defies Both death and time. It operates its spike, Injecting magic botox near the eyes And in the film star’s forehead by P.R. The actor and executives conspire To cast the...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | Ho, LU
A vacuum perceived requires a fix. It may not be a real lacuna but The fear that it might be results in tricks Of golden surgery. The star must strut As if there were no fault. No plastic knife Will do the job. A golden one cuts best. And if an actor chooses the...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | Ho, LU
Replacing Truth with Beauty “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” ~ John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” The trick is making it look effort-free. The style must seem as natural as hair Inside an armpit. If the star is she, Not he, the use of hair-removing Nair Or...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | Ho, LU
Grammar Glamor Aye, leave it to the Scots spell the word A winsome way. The English did not change Orthography of “grammar” to a slurred New form that came to mean a widened range Of scope, of starlets stalking down a long Red carpet, or a slew of...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | Ho, LU
Gods and Goddesses without Free Will The palace of the glamor kings and queens Is guarded at its gate by guys with guns. They will not ever let the silver screens Around the world show us the blemished sons And daughters of semi-divinities. The chosen ones must flash...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | AP, Ho, LU
Blessèd Are the Beautiful The people built for glamor are built for Worship. Adulation of the crowd Is studio directed so that, more Like worship, it concocts a Venus proud Of her authority or actors veil Themselves like royalty in Oz. We do Not want their...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | BR, DI, Ho, LU, MA
Angels Are Never Blue Except in Hollywood The Tinsel Town attempt to stop the heart Is far too obvious, just like its screened Stupidities for teenage boys. A tart Poised on a staircase after being preened Shows off her legs like Cyd Charisse. A stool Displays the...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | GE, Ho, JE, LU
Mazel Toffs It didn’t hurt to be a Gentile on The Silver Screen within the Golden Age. The Jews who ran it walked out on the lawn (The Riv of course). They had to disengage Their cut cock culture from the shiksa one. They played croquet for goodness sake And...
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 | Sep 24, 2021 | GA, GR, LU, MA, MO
Feeling Like Eternity and Not Just the Golden Era That halo light from Hollywood shines down Across the decades. Garbo’s eyes still glow And Marilyn enwrapped in glitter gown, The sequins spangled, neckline cut so low The breast bone almost passed between those...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2021 | EL, LU, MA, MO, OS, PR, Ta
A Skin-deep Sea in a Fake Heaven The depths of shallowness are what the stars Dive into. Starlit deeps make slickness glow Like Barbarella dressed for sex-grooved Mars, Or Marilyn with one leg raised to show The blue pool has not killed her yet. Like Wilde...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2021 | LU
Shirley Temple and Judy Garland’s Shoes Some stars of Hollywood are eyes, all eyes, And some are legs. A few are mouth and lips, Like Marilyn, spread open, hinting thighs Might hinge ajar for love above her hips And then the final view, not scarlet as The kiss would...
by phillipw | Sep 20, 2021 | BA, LU, MA, MO, NO
The Minx and Sacrifice The reason Marilyn appealed to both The men and women was because she meant A dual thing and not just beauty. Too loath To say that, though, they melted to her scent Composed of victimhood and vampishness. They, deep gods, or...
by phillipw | Sep 20, 2021 | LU
The Holy of Holies If Ingrid Bergman can’t be made to shine Divine as God, then Hollywood will flop. When she does not flare bright as Christ, the shrine (Not just its curtain) will be torn and drop To Limbo (or to something even less). The fans Will...
by phillipw | Sep 19, 2021 | HA, JE, LU
Stagey Witchiness Why bother with salvation when that “blonde” From bottles does the trick? The Hollywood Of hocus pocus Harlow’s hair has spawned One billion knock offs. Even Bollywood Would try the spell if it could get away With platinum...
by phillipw | Sep 15, 2021 | LU, MO, PR
Elizabeth Taylor Never Managed Bangles to Compete with THAT Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When class means one thing in Great Britain, class Means something else in Hollywood. It’s glitz There, glitz...
by phillipw | Sep 14, 2021 | Ho, LU
What Movie Stars Can Never Be Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Enchantment is a slavery to stars Of sweatless screens, the cinema, tv, Or Netflix, or on smartphones. Out on Mars They walk around, and...
by phillipw | May 20, 2021 | LO, LU, SE
Men as Objects of Desire The myths have got it right about the males And females. Males are hunters in each myth. They go out stalking victims in these tales And tragedy results. The females, with A sudden craze, are forced to fall in love With men who love to...
by phillipw | Feb 14, 2021 | AP, AR, DE, LO, LU
Not to Be Eclipsed Artemis and Apollo Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He settles into quietness, a moon That does not give a care about eclipse. He settles into desperate calm, a noon Ruled...
by phillipw | Dec 20, 2020 | AR, BE, CO, IM, LU, RO
Hearing Deafly Romantics are like oceans, deep, disturbed, And wide. Unfathomed parts of them require Attention for this art. Their depths, perturbed Like Christ’s Bethesda or by coal mines’ fire, Impact the darkness and are meant to treat Our...
by phillipw | Dec 7, 2020 | AN, AR, CA, DR, FA, GA, LU, PR
Gabriel or Lucifer? My cat is like an angel when he dreams, An angel from the furry realms of God. It is as if he more than merely seems To be archangel-like, a cat who’s awed By holy visions twitching in his paws, And lies angelic in his twitching calm. His...
by phillipw | Nov 29, 2020 | AL, AN, DE, EP, GR, HE, IS, LU, MA, PH, PL, SE
Healthy Hedonism; and, Holy Hedonism, Paired Sonnets Healthy Hedonism Tattoo upon yourself this perfect law— The sacredness of pleasure is above The other, puny principles. The awe That it deserves, like God in love, Confirms that thrills, inviolate and...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | AM, BI, GA, LE, LO, LU, RO, SE
The next sonnet may offend some readers. If you think you may be offended, please do not read it. Plato Hated Poetry, Poor Thing First Sappho catalogued the symptoms of Tsunami wave emotions. Sickness like This malady has been treated as love By writers ever since. ...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2020 | LO, LU, SE
The Climax “To be philosophical, then, is to be vigilant – sôphron – about one’s erotic mania.” ~ http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/ A manly mindfulness is not enough. You have to think as hard as marble cut To temple pillars carved with grooves...
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 | CH, CL, ET, HU, LU, MU, PA
Heart Trouble Where does music come from? Does it come from Heart wounds? No. Music is at first derived From minds. It offers mathematics’ thrum For ears. At Eton teenage Parry thrived On music and on sport in spite of heart Disease becoming palpable. ...
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 | FO, LO, LU, PO, PR
Words without Song: a Sonnet [This sonnet sticks to all the rules for a sonnet except that it is laid out on the page as if it were five paragraphs of prose.] Is love a spate of rhyming in the veins? Or is it even less, a bit of plot (inside a thousand paperbacks)...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | BR, LU, MA
Luther Resurrected and Improved He looks a bit like Luther must have looked When he was young, his mouth a little sad, His nose, though cute and certainly not hooked, Considerably turned up and just a tad Too short and narrow to transpose to Seriousness of ordered,...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | EM, LO, LU
Hotmail I still remember writing words of love On notes of vellum-colored paper, rich And stiff as passion, smoother than a glove Of silk so sleek it seemed no tidy stitch Was needed. (What has tidiness to do With steel desire?) I still recall the cards Of...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | BA, CO, FO, GA, JE, LU, MU
Foucault Addresses Barraqué After his Death Invisible inside sapphiric blue, Pale beauty was the hidden man. Your need To hide–conceal yourself, seek to subdue All revelation of your soul, impede Not only others but your mouth and hand From searching out your...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | LU, SE
Goal! I wrote my love along a napkin on A restaurant table. Others watched a match On artificial turf. They watched brawn, And I wrote poetry, though just a smatch Of it, a sonnet meant to be about That thing men worship when they’re not Involved...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | CO, FL, LO, LU, PA, PL, RO, SE
The Purpose of the Cosmos Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dawns come and go. The twilights blaze and fade. The phases of the moon go round and round In slivers and in spheres. Sea days are made...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | BE, FE, LO, LU, MA, SE, Uncategorized
The Highest of the High Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I tried to sing of politics and stuff Like that, the serious matters I’m supposed To write about. But that was not enough, No, not enough...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | DE, LI, LO, LU, SE
The Cosmos Reduced to Pathetic Nil The cosmos, poor old thing, just falls away. It doesn’t matter anymore than dishrags, sour Beneath the sink. Creation starts to sway To less than nothingness the way a tower Crumbles into heap and dust in earthquake Nausea. Love...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | AG, FA, Ho, LU, TR
It was (you may say) satisfactory Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When once there was a war above, not all Was wrong. The heft of heaven is the strength Of its stability. The walls, though tall, Are...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | BR, LU, SE
Gilded Scales Hanging from a Limb Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem http://www.photopedagogy.com/uploads/5/0/0/9/50097419/6978873_orig.jpg “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.” ~ André...
by phillipw | May 9, 2020 | LU, PA
Stronger than a Scimitar-like Serenade His words spread there across my senses, red Across my hearing like a scarlet sheet Of lightning, red across the thorn sliced head Of Jesus, redder than his blood on feet Oozed out from spikes. The words spread out there in My...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2020 | LO, LU, MA, SE
Antediluvian and Modern Man The crotch, a man’s crotch, is located in The center of his body, of his soul. It’s at the core of him and in his sin. His essence comes out shooting from his pole When he is more a man on fire with lust (Or love; you call it what you...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | LO, LU, RO
Atheism “The lyric had functions in religious and other terms.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 10 So what has changed? Nothing really, except We now make lust itself a god, divine Without the need of Venus. We have swept The gods...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2020 | Ho, IS, LO, LU, RO
Testosterone Trumps Religions “Pleasure is the most insolent of all things; and … in amatory enjoyments, which are said to be the most powerful of all, even perjury has been pardoned by the Gods, as if pleasure was like a child, incapable of...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | LU
A Man’s Grasp Enclosed within a high-walled garden lost In London is a rosebush robed in blooms Of red and white. Each blossom is of white And red. The beauty of these flowers looms Both separately and chorus-like with those Beside them in full green of...
by phillipw | Jan 28, 2020 | LO, LU
Cleopatra A wrinkled jotter page is what’s to hand While making poetry for you. The sheet Is hardly right for writing sonnets, grand Emotions, vivid passions, all replete With love and other tortures and disease Of heart and synapse. Love lacks...
by phillipw | Dec 12, 2019 | CH, DE, FA, LU, PR
Your Death Will Not Be Love Your death will not be in the order of The alphabet. Destruction comes as planned By God (predestination) from his love, From luck (though thinkers cannot understand That concept), or from nothing more than chance. Extinction doesn’t...
by phillipw | Oct 30, 2019 | DE, LU
The Gemini Known as All/Most Loves Are Lost Most loves are lost the moment they are born. Their DNA contains the genes to doom Devotion. Bonded chromosomes are torn, Though only slightly. They become love’s tomb As well, simultaneous the death and birth. Invisible,...
by phillipw | Oct 14, 2019 | DE, LU, MO
Fixed among the Embers I have this widowed sense about my life, A lack of presence so profound that love Is alien. I’m like a sloughed off wife Or prayerful addict now divested of My sacred drug. The sense is I have lost A major universal law surrounding me, That...
by phillipw | Oct 14, 2019 | BR, LU
Across the Desk from me in the British Library The shape of nostril is enough alone To say, “Write love about me. Write it now!” The message pierces through the central bone That holds my ribs together like a vow Of chastity that must be broken. Rip My...
by phillipw | Oct 1, 2019 | LU, SE
Admission When Lucifer kneels down upon the earth His knee is heavy with that might, the length Arched downward in his thigh. Its muscled girth There bends. A fullness sexual in strength And weight extends itself beside a shape Created for his...
by phillipw | Sep 30, 2019 | AN, CU, FA, LU
God’s Love An angel sought to be like God, better Than Him. This Lucifer was hurtled down. He wanted only to break the fetter Of abject devotion. A fiery gown Enveloped him. He wears it still. It’s Hell. Eve tasted fruit. The curses came like snake...
by phillipw | Sep 19, 2019 | LO, LU, PA, RO, SE
The Memory of Your Mouth The memory of your mouth still makes a wound Where lips now hollow once were crushed with lust. Your tongue and teeth that savaged like a hound Have left a scar-like gap and taste of rust Where feral kisses set their mark and had Their...
by phillipw | Sep 19, 2019 | LU
Beyond Calton Road: Architecture and Love The handsome streeets of Glasgow hide themselves Lest some conspiracy of tastelessness Combined with so-called progress pries and delves With jackhammers and bulldozers to mess Up...
by phillipw | Aug 25, 2019 | LO, LU
Words without Song: a Sonnet Is love a spate of rhyming in the veins? Or is it even less, a bit of plot (inside a thousand paperbacks) like stains across their pages? Is it merely hot concessions to the urgent skin of lust? Are fornication and adultery love’s...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2019 | LU
Extreme Unction The thing you had for him was somewhere in Between the condemnation of the prudes And attitudes of libertines, not sin Yet not just sentimental pink or moods Of valentines and lilies. Far above, Beyond these two extremes it wasn’t more Than...
by phillipw | Feb 4, 2019 | LU
There’s someone deep inside me who is me, The “me” who is my soul—or whatever— Since I’m an unbeliever. It’s the key, Though, something that no surgeon can sever, Not even hifalutin’ blade-like shrinks. He’s actually a person. If you scan Me with precision...