by phillipw | Dec 6, 2019 | MA, ME
The Brightest Branch The brightest branch, or flower, or limb still casts A shadow. If that limb, an arm or thigh, Is masculine, the thickened shadow will Be darker, wider yet. It might be sly But brutal is more likely. Brutal power Is one consideration in...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
Cool Friend, Warm Friend; Easy Does it Friendship Sometimes the definitions seem less grand. D. H. Lawrence remarks, “I like him. What Else is there?” Friendship’s not a big demand. It doesn’t have to be a great big strut Of pledges and...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
But Francis Bacon says there’s almost no Such thing as friendship in the world, and least Of all between equals. Call him “bro”— He’ll turn into that foe we call the beast, Dite Derrida. The Christ called Judas, “Friend,” Received betrayal in a sexless kiss Because...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | FR, MA
Embracing Men’s friendship is love reduced to greed, true Covetousness dressed up as affection– Or so says Nietzsche. It is reduced to A South Seas cuisine of male confection, A sort of cannibalism in which The two sit down to swallow...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2019 | FR, MA, MO
“O mes amis, il n’y a nul ami” “My friends, there is no friend!” Diogenes Laertius has Aristotle cry, Despairing of the chance that theory’s Demand for one who’s more than ally, Gives more than scratch his back and he’ll scratch mine Delight, is more than merely pure,...
by phillipw | Dec 2, 2019 | FR, MA
Best at a Distance Some say that friendship’s realm is nowhere but Nostalgia. Love of man for man exists In regions where the friend is absent, shut Out, exiled, say, or better dead, subsists On mourning, loss, and echoes. Because if He is actually in the...
