by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | ME, RE
Renaissance Confusion Leading on to Shelley http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/harris/StudentProjects/Laset/DefenNotes.htm Though poetry is not divine, some minds, Awakening centuries’ minds, turn Plato’s views To make that claim. A lonely scholar winds The esthetician’s...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2020 | AN, ME, SC
Medieval or Eternity The artist does not have a name. Severe With grace in stone, the sculptures look down on Us, masking his identity, a tear Not shed, a smile withheld. The brawn Of arm and shoulder, strength and talent of The hand can only be supposed. The man...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | AN, IL, ME
Ancient Greek, Then Church Latin, Symposium, Scriptorium “Readers of Greek poetry constituted an élite, as in the Middle Ages readers of Latin did.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 13 “The symposiasts drank rather too much-watered wine, wore crowns, perfumes and...
by phillipw | Mar 27, 2020 | ME
Medea Made of Marble, Barbarity, and Beauty …… One difficulty is that we make gold Where only bronze was. Alchemy of mind Tends finally to turn ideals and old Exemplars into falsenenesses which blind With kitschlike beauty. Worlds built on slaves Are...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2020 | ME
Turkish Delights The fruits of memory caked with silence are Unlike those crystal petal bonbons, sweet And bright in colors. Memory’s like a star Collapsed upon itself with weight, not heat, Far cooler. Keepsakes wrapped in rigid loss, Our memories...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2020 | ME, MU
Mendelssohn without the Strains of Music How plain and stultified is music on The printed page, but stiff black staves and straight Blocked measures have a graceful antiphon Of phrase marks and of oval notes. Collate These with the treble clef and bass clef to Obtain...
