by phillipw | Apr 12, 2024 | CR, MA, ME, VI
Damned Quixote Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When William Blake went mad, it was his soul That drove him to it. It was far too straight, As straight as light, unerring in its goal When...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2024 | GE, MA, QU, Ta
A Twenty-eight Year Old Baker Boy Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We go to evensong and never think Of Tankerfield, not once. The anthems rise More jasmine-like than incense — not the stink Of...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2024 | FR, MA
Father and Friendship My father, he believed in friendship, so Much so he called his two first sons the names Of closest, most beloved of friends. Forgo The family obligations, family claims, Cut straight to purer love than heirdom’s weight, A nobler...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2024 | CH, FR, MA, ST
“One Soul in Bodies Twain” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Seventh Type of Ambiguity ~ William Empson A single photon passes through two slits At once, impossible, yet not quite so. The quantum...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2024 | GA, Ho, IR, MA
Irises Not Dreaming of Other Irises Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem An iris cannot dream. It cannot dream Of blue, not even nearly purple blue, That wishes it were black. A cherubim, Once it had...
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 | Jan 9, 2024 | CO, ER, HA, Ho, MA, PE, RU, SE
The Haunt of Manly Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A tingling in his skin with hairs makes nubs Rise up. They pop up from connections to His heart, nerve wires. His left-hand searches,...
by phillipw | Dec 22, 2023 | FE, MA, RO
Masculine Self-reliance ~ Know Thyself Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The fact we do not think about when, BANG, The climax happens (male) or comes and comes And comes if in the woman, when nerves clang...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2023 | FL, HA, IS, MA
Palestine Protesters in Perspective Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In Michigan an X-er in one town Is all upset because an Xmas band Is drowned out by a protest. One cold frown Is sent across The...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2023 | MA
Entasis Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The curve of beauty comes more often than The strictness of the straightness made by hands. In fact Greek pillars made by thinking man Require a curve in...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2023 | GA, Ho, LO, MA
Fraught and not Fraught [Today, October 7, 2023, I bought Abhishek’s wedding ring.] Where only black and gold are, gods will lie In wait. The black ones are uncountable, The gold ones only three. The black ones fly Around and in us, unsurmountable The...
by phillipw | Sep 19, 2023 | FA, MA, Uncategorized
There Are Other Organs than the Heart: Body Parts for Love Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary...
by phillipw | Aug 29, 2023 | IN, MA, MO
Helen as Pathetic 1950s Florence Nightingale A mother nearly stumbles in beside The beds, each boy in misery of flu As if in torture chambers. They have cried Themselves to whimpering sleep like kittens mew When dying. Husband also mashed down, slammed In fever,...
by phillipw | Jun 24, 2023 | FR, MA
The Bride If Tennyson had crushed that flower in The crannied wall, would he have known what God And man are? Would that poet know what sin And Christ’s theodicy are? Overawed Is what this rhymester wanted most to be. He didn’t really...
by phillipw | Jun 10, 2023 | MA, SU
Superbland Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem That so-called Superman is not so great. Never writes a sonnet sequence in Ten seconds (OR far fewer). Second-rate He is. At speeding-bullet...
by phillipw | May 28, 2023 | CH, MA, ST, Uncategorized, WH
E-scrapbooks of Holiness Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The images consulted most are those Of love, well, lovers. Highest in the search Are photographs where we and lovers pose. Clichés count...
by phillipw | May 12, 2023 | Ho, MA, RE
Of Divine Feet Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The truest God would make most horses wear Those manes of gold that stallions and their colts Deserve. These all and phillies—and...
by phillipw | Apr 23, 2023 | BE, MA, SC, SI, Uncategorized
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Prophets among Us on Civilisations and Acting like Hubble and Webb Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Those vaster minds show greater grasp of things, So, so much...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2023 | CH, MA, Uncategorized
More Sacred than a Spiritual Crocus A blossom holds more steady than the flare Above a candle in the air of night. As steady as a young nun’s golden prayer Before the altar, yellow blossom’s height Is reaching up for God or higher to Agape love itself...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2022 | CH, DR, MA, MY, WH
Modesty’s Refinement from a Winter’s Afternoon The curtains in the bedroom at the front Were Margaret’s last and accidental gift To me. Before their hanging day, death’s stunt Destroyed her. She was sucked right through that rift...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2022 | CH, FA, GI, MA
Marilyn Monroe’s Father, Charles Stanley Gifford Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He’s obviously an alien. Just look At him and then at her. The evil shows Despite the camera and the way it took Him at...
by phillipw | Jul 11, 2022 | AT, CA, HI, MA, NA
Dispensation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem What falls from heavens here upon the earth Brings mornings set with richness and with flux. A fullness settles, once with grief or...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2022 | MA
Mandarin Ducks in December Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The winter settles on the colors of The throat and wings. A coldness there calls light To make the feathers look like frosty love,...
by phillipw | May 28, 2022 | DE, DY, MA, WH
As She Lies on Her Deathbed The tulip petals have been turned to pale Translucent beauty in their death. The oval petals have become a veil For ghosts to wear, like fragrance from the breath Of phantoms. Lavender has faded, dawn Reduced, a fading caused by...
by phillipw | May 23, 2022 | BE, FA, MA, PE, SI
If men desire to find belief, to sing It out through throats works best to make the soul Embrace it. This will make the sought faith zing Behind their hearts and manliness’s whole. The faith will throb straight through the tenor throats, The baritones and basses’...
by phillipw | May 18, 2022 | DE, MA, WH
Beyond Beyond this writing of ourselves upon Eternity, we need the finite veins Of heart. It teaches love is not withdrawn When we have left. Love hovers leaving stains As breath upon the air of heaven’s light. The light and air both...
by phillipw | May 11, 2022 | CY, GA, Ho, LO, MA, PH, RO, Uncategorized
Someone Special Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Who has to be a special someone when He knows that he is loved? Perhaps some sun God loves him. Maybe he knows more than men...
by phillipw | May 4, 2022 | AE, BE, ES, HE, JU, LI, MA, PH
Junge Männer, a Sonnet Sequence on the photographs in Herbert List’s Junge Männer [Each sonnet is about at least one of the sonnets in List’s book. Before the title of each sonnet is the number of the photograph the poem is about, as in (#1). Often (or...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2022 | AS, BE, BR, MA
Dark Star Boy Slight primness there around his mouth, so slight It’s quite unfair to notice it . . . it makes Him look as if the hulking skies of night Have never interested him. The lakes Of stars in space have never caught his eye. He’s never...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2022 | AR, CR, CU, EJ, MA, OR, PU, SE, SP, UN, underarm hair, ZE
Cobalt and Amber: Prometheus Daydreaming Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If I could shape the first man, I would make Him cobalt blue, his eyes a Viking blue, His nose a righteous Grecian one to shake...
by phillipw | Apr 1, 2022 | MA, SL
Vegan Dreams Become Real He swallowed other people’s dreams and tried To make them his. They made it down his throat, Right past his Adam’s apple. They were wide Inside him but too like a swelling bloat. These swelled like parts of men that conquer holes,...
by phillipw | Mar 27, 2022 | MA, PR, SE
Wedding Wings: Hymenoptera The thought of weddings brings a joy to some, The brides and grooms in white and black, perhaps To mothers of the brides. Joys overcome The nagging doubts, but joys tend to lapse. Among the guests the odd one here and there...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, IM, MA, PO, RU
Wince “Hynes succeeds in reducing Brooke to two pitying, scathing lines: ‘Poor Brooke: it is his destiny to live as a supremely poetical figure, shirt open and hair too long and profile perfect – a figure that appeals to that...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, MA, RU
Too Very Possible to Understand “Born the second of three sons, Brooke was a deep disappointment to his mother, who had wished for a daughter. Brooke brooded over his mother’s sense of loss and the constant remarks of strangers on his skin that was ‘clear as a...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, MA, RU, Uncategorized
The Mother of Rupert Brooke Reacted Strongly against Praise of his Physical Beauty Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Indeed, it sometimes seems that every person who ever met Brooke, and certainly...
by phillipw | Mar 14, 2022 | BE, BR, GA, LA, LO, MA, RO, RU, UN
On the Rubbish Heap of Time . . . The one he loved the most was Charles Lascelles. We have to take Brooke’s word for it that he Was beautiful. As Rugby tower bells Rang out the hours, a passion rhymed with glee Pumped hard inside the future poet, hard...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2022 | BE, BR, CH, LA, MA, RU
No Need for Mary Magdalene: Robin Lane Fox Reports that One Ancient Source Claimed that Alexander the Great’s Natural Body Odor was Like Perfume The beauty whom we cannot see through years And shrouds of time is one we have no chance Of seeing photos of. Lascelles...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2022 | BE, BR, MA, RA, RU
Messy Splendor; or, Splendor in the Weeds Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Jacques Raverat said that Rupert Brooke clothed himself “in a dishevelled style that showed off his beauty very...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2022 | BR, ED, MA, RU
For Decades Afterward the Civil Servant Moaned, but Then in Later Decades We are All but Clueless Eddie Marsh, standing How stripped we are of details, skinned by time Of facts long lost. We do not know what Will Looked like while he thrust deep his semen crime In...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2022 | BE, BI, BR, MA, RU, SC, ST
Big Boy Hunk The Big Boy Hunk that isn’t Rupert Brooke On Skyros is just too, too like the false, False images built up around him, like a crook Has pulled a dirty trick but wants to waltz With you, no matter what. The Big Boy Hunk Stands towering...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2022 | BE, BR, CH, MA
Auburn Love Maleness Maleness Maleness The way a twilight in the autumn turns To unsung colors, so the chapel light Inside the service changes from the burns Of orange to a brown with red so slight It slinks away as suns go down. The red Is almost memory, not real,...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2022 | BE, BR, MA, PO, RU
Approximating versus Knowing He wasn’t photogenic, no, not quite. Some formal portraits capture beauty, glow Almost with glory, but don’t hold the might To hint enough of what he had to show, Why men and women staggered in their hearts. These pictures made...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2022 | DE, FI, HA, LO, MA, SE
What Comes After Every Beauty How easily it Glows. How easily it goes Out, the firefly’s green. ~ Chine-jo The green is very faint but still is green. The flash is very brief but still a glint. Then after every blink comes dark, between The promise and the living,...
by phillipw | Jan 28, 2022 | FI, HA, MA, SE
Silent Explosions, Please The firefly Gives light To its pursuer. ~ Ōemaru The firefly gives gleams, Green light to its pursuer. Green again, again. ~ A haiku by Ōemaru westernized by Phillip Whidden Its green is life, permission, yes, and go. The green is...
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 | Nov 23, 2021 | BE, MA
A Poem from Glossolalia: Men and Angels “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” I Corinthians 13:1 Agreeable and thoughtful, is that quite Enough? No, not if he is...
by phillipw | Nov 22, 2021 | AN, FR, MA, PR
Straight Road Willows Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The friend has gone along the long straight road With willows all along on left and right. Their greenness does not...
by phillipw | Nov 16, 2021 | BR, MA, RU
“unsettled by the devotion he aroused” The complication with high carat gold In men is no one knows quite how to cope With “gorgeous” in a guy. His beauties scold All those around him. Most go off and mope Because they know they do not have a chance At him or when...
by phillipw | Oct 18, 2021 | BR, LO, MA, ME, RU, WO
Rupert Wanted Surrender “Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate. Love sells the proud heart’s citadel to fate.”~ Rupert Brooke Would women be as likely as a man To write such sentiments, to think of love As breaching walled in strength, as Æthelstan...
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 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 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 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 | Sep 7, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Seek Him Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “And turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” When language stumbles, and when things are bound To some eternal silence, yes,...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, MA, Ta
French Leave Piloting to Sorrow Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Charles Randall Joseph Taulelle BIRTH 15 Sep 1934 DEATH 17 Nov 1959 (aged 25) BURIAL Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Arlington...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Smashed by Lightning into the Shenandoah Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Ecclesiastes 9:5 I wonder what he took to death of me. His death was whacking as a lightning strike. Then we were washed away. It...
by phillipw | Aug 31, 2021 | HE, MA
“The Declaration of Independence” and “Resistance to Civil Government “Bring Peace and War The mildness of a Ghandi turns to thrust Of violence. The little spinning wheel Becomes a maelstrom. Prejudices combust The whole subcontinent. That...
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 16, 2021 | AD, CH, DR, FR, MA, ST
Vanilla Vermont I think the man I loved for many years, A druggie, lost in needles and cocaine, The man who caused so many useless tears, That man called Chuck, would find it quite inane That I am drinking coffee, milky stuff With lots of sweeteners...
by phillipw | Aug 4, 2021 | LO, MA, PE, SE
“Men coming and going on the earth” ~ Rupert Brooke Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Men come and go in love and death beside The heart and in our beds: the red-haired ones With that strange skin and with...
by phillipw | Jul 24, 2021 | GE, MA
The Beekeeper Ponders the Exceptional Hexagon Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Saturn’s North Pole cloud formation The heavy hexagons of rock that shaped In heated rock, the lava as it cooled...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2021 | HU, MA, PR
Jeff and Richard Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When males are born, they have the chance to be Men, toiling on a farm in sweat and muck, Or fishing in the roiling waves the sea Throws...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2021 | AR, HE, HI, MA, SE, SM, TH
An Unsuitable Boy His arms are almost prominent in this Pic taken of him at Baringo. They Are hairy but of course the gorgeous Miss Rejected him. Their bedroom play Revealed his back was even hairier And that was more than she could bear. That hair on shoulders...
by phillipw | Jun 28, 2021 | CA, DU, HE, LO, MA, ST
Cleaving on an Island Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The house on Merritt Island stood alone On sand. No doubt the sand had sandspurs set Among the weeds. Like a ramshackle throne It ruled...
by phillipw | Jun 8, 2021 | FE, HE, MA, SE, TH, TR
It Takes One Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Henry David Thoreau writes of Chaucer, “We are tempted to say that his genius was feminine, not masculine. It was such feminineness,...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | AE, BE, BU, CH, MA, PH, RE, ST
No Hypocrisy or Self-deceiving in Esthetics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When Jesus speaks, the monasteries chant And convents count their beads. On Georgia’s roads His words are...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | AP, GR, MA, SP, SY
Accordingly The spirit of the peony is spring. The summer finds itself inside a rose. In May the petals, red and pink, both sing A colored fugue in fragrant ratios. The garden wings have gathered. Great tits leap As through the grandest canyon. Swooped...
by phillipw | Jun 3, 2021 | BL, FE, MA, SE, SU
Mastery The first dream morning brought, on honeymoon To start his life together, he smiled, yawned, And stretched, and then he moved himself to spoon Against that back and hips. It slowly dawned Inside his brain that he could grin and keep This...
by phillipw | Jun 1, 2021 | FI, LI, LO, MA, SE
The Y Chromosome Inside the Tiny Holy Grail All day the firefly Folds in his glow beneath grass Waiting for twilight. ~ a found haiku; original words adjusted by PhillipWhidden; encountered in Henry David Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord...
by phillipw | May 30, 2021 | BR, DE, HE, MA, PR, VI
The Bridegroom Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He wakes up in the bridal bed. The sheets Are white but crumpled. She is slumped beside Him in a different sleep. Her throat pulse...
by phillipw | May 21, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, MA, RE, RO, SP, ST, UN
Tightly Closed in Open April during the Cherry Blossom Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Remembering sapphire air, I think of you. We shared a cut gem spring which lasted long And long because the...
by phillipw | May 12, 2021 | FU, MA, SE
Star Bursts He doesn’t want to shoot down stars or blast At them at all. He doesn’t think that he Can boost the sky with something better, vast As his desire might be. That French marquis Is not at all his pattern. What he wants To shoot is...
by phillipw | May 11, 2021 | AN, CI, GR, Ho, MA, PA
Might Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In real man Greece the reason for the male Grown up in masculinity to be The one to be allowed to vote and rail Against opponents in a vote was...
by phillipw | May 4, 2021 | AR, DA, FA, FE, GE, GR, MA, SE, SO, SP, UN
Armpit and Genital Hair on the Masculine Anima Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The armpit hair of spirits is too dark For women. Females do not like to think Of it or get a glance of it as stark As...
by phillipw | May 2, 2021 | MA
Ethan and Henry Holiday Best Wishes Enlarging beauty for you both is what The Christmas angels want. High hopes are what they want for you. A glut And pile of happiness are what they’d flaunt Now here in Christmas goodies just for you Alone, you two, because you like...
by phillipw | May 2, 2021 | IS, MA, OL, ZE
Zero Truth from Pagan Mesoamerica An ancient Olmec scholar dreamed it up. He worked it out within his Allah-less thought. He did not need to use a carved stone cup Of baby blood to figure math’s round nought. This Olmec thinker lived three thousand years (Or maybe...
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 | Apr 22, 2021 | MA
The Constituents of Man Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The man is made of mud and semen, thought Of course, and other juice, testosterone And throbbing blood. A suited astronaut Or physicist is...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2021 | FE, MA, RO
Romanticism The truth is that romance is not romantic In being Polynesian, scented with Chanel, Hermès, Yves . . . not necromantic, Not in the least unusual. That myth That it’s romantic is stupendous in Its chutzpah. What romantic really is Is more a...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2021 | FA, IS, MA, RE, SA, ST
Righteous Believers Stop their Ears When Stephen, dragged for stoning, knelt at last, The Middle Eastern mob predicted our Times. Vicious truths lived, brutal, in the past And live outrageously. Their hour Is near, unending in that hateful realm. This hatred...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2021 | AD, CO, DO, DR, EL, FA, MA, PA, PR, RE, SE
There to Efface Himself in Ecstasy Religious? There to efface himself in Ecstasy he flailed about. Yes, he tried Cocaine at first and, lolling in that sin, He won election victory as he fried His brain that way. Of course he used plain Ole dope as well but somehow...
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 | Mar 23, 2021 | CL, CU, MA, OR, SE
Past Joy Everything Else is Death Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Le petite mort” You probe for joy, and probe for joy, then probe Again, again — more deeply. Joy is there. You know that long...
by phillipw | Mar 19, 2021 | AU, MA, SP, VI
March Meets October The violets are deepest purple in The lane. This purple laughs as darkness there Beneath the hedge. Such purple is the twin Of brighter colors matching autumn’s blare Of orange, but the double of them just In beauty. Blooms so much...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2021 | EA, ER, HA, HE, HI, LO, MA, ME, SE, ST
Recollections Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dawn comes and wakens up inside my core The reminiscences that sleep inside The past, that sleep there, stowed subconscious lore That...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2021 | FA, IN, LO, MA, MO, PR
Love’s Predestination The baby Cain asleep upon the breast Of Eve with Adam looking fondly on Would be enough to make the sight arrest Unease in anyone. At that white dawn Of motherhood with Eve as God designed Her lovingly, her man as beautiful In her fond...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2021 | AM, BO, BR, CH, EN, FL, MA, PL, RU, SM
International Geographic The tawny boys run through the woods and streets Wherever they are raised, in rural realms Of citrus Florida, where sunshine meets Them under orange grove trees or under elms In England—everywhere. They build their dykes Or dams, their...
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 | Feb 25, 2021 | EM, MA, PH, ST
The Tonic of Thought from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Not all of thought is good, but thinking heals, Or offers therapy. The thinkers past Give guidance in their...
by phillipw | Feb 1, 2021 | CI, MA, OV, PE
Oxymoron The mystery of a circle makes not quite A mystery. Circles are a perfect shape And with ideals, so like the Phoenix’ flight, Renewals endlessly, the mind must gape. Since circles are, each one, a flawless line, The only way that they can be the nth...
by phillipw | Jan 20, 2021 | HE, HU, IS, MA, MI, RO, SE, ST, TR
Iseut of the White Hands “[…] then he was such that all who saw him said that if he was not a brave knight he really must hate his fine body. And indeed he was so handsome that Iseut herself, who was called Iseut of the White Hands, fell madly in love with...
by phillipw | Jan 17, 2021 | AE, AN, BE, ES, MA, NA, SE
An Alternative Universe Has No Narcissus Blossoms Lingering by Ponds Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Narcissus climbed down from the edge and stepped In, lowering himself until he saw The water start...
by phillipw | Jan 10, 2021 | IL, LE, MA, ME, MO, TH
Medieval Razzmatazz in Le Morte d’Arthur Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Than he com on so faste that his felyship semed as blak as inde.” ~ Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Let’s...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2021 | CH, FR, MA, ST
I Return in Steam Bath August to D.C. and the Divinity Student Walks me through Scrubby Mounds that Would Be Woods Natsu kodachi Hairishi hito no Ato mo nashi In the summer grove I go . . . and not a trace of Him, the man, remains ~Shiki The grove he walked me through...
by phillipw | Jan 6, 2021 | KI, MA, SE, SI
Hard as an Anvil and a Stone …. “bygge” ~ Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Stuck in, pulled out, stuck in, pulled out, again Again, again, again, the weapon he had found That only he could wield, the best of men, The one to do it, stout young Arthur crowned...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2020 | CH, DI, FR, GA, Ho, LO, MA, SP, WA
When Washington Created Lasting Love on M Street, Georgetown Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You sum up everything I lost, An April made unending since we shared The cherry blossoms as in Pentecost,...
by phillipw | Dec 24, 2020 | CH, FU, JU, MA, MO, RO, RU
Death Sneers Silently at Services We sing to dead ones. That is how we pray. We sing the hymns and requiems. We chant The kaddish and the words of fate. We sway In robes the living wear. The pious rant Which sounds more beautiful than death, unless The timbre is of...
by phillipw | Dec 24, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, LO, MA, MO, PH, WH
Doppelgängers Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You almost smell despair of men alone When they have lost that one friend, that one near They found they loved as if a holy clone Had...
by phillipw | Dec 20, 2020 | FE, MA, SE, VI
Different Reactions to the Loss of Virginity Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I A young man wakes, not quite as slow as spring, From love’s first night. The groggy bulb begins To swell and open in...