by phillipw | Feb 5, 2024 | GE, OL, SH, WI
He Looks as Old as Hatred Now Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Alas, poor Yorick” “instruments of darkness tell us truths” ~ Shakespeare, Macbeth He looks as old as hatred now. This scene...
by phillipw | Jan 11, 2023 | AR, KY, OL, SA, SO
Some Things Don’t Need Recollection An old man takes his time to wrap around His sag of flesh the armor. This care’s not Because he fears the fight or battle ground. It’s just because his joints are are stiff and fraught With aches. One younger...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2022 | EA, MO, OL
Earendel Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem This morning star exploded in the dark Of ancient space, exploded, formed and shone Before the orbs that we have known, a...
by phillipw | Mar 24, 2022 | AN, MO, OL
Uhtceare . . . . .l He lies awake and not, awake but not In decent consciousness, more nightmarish His bed. He feels entrapped inside a slot Of evils, waking worries, angst, garish In coldest heat. This looms, sorrow before The dawn, in darkness...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, JA, LO, NO, OL, RU, ST, UN
Trinity’s Anchorite in Gentle Agony James Strachey, lacking goldsmiths’ stunning hair, Sat by his non-gold fire alone inside His Cambridge room and felt the flare Of shrined romance within his ribs. It dyed His arteries and veins the color of A soul in...
by phillipw | Mar 5, 2022 | BR, JA, NO, OL, SE, ST
A Hovering Sexual Position Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The poet, Rupert Brooke, felt trouble with Deciding what his sex position was. He listened to his gay friends’ favorite myth...
by phillipw | Nov 26, 2021 | OL
Beauty Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The old man stumbles, breaking off a spray Of spring-tree flowers while trying not to fall. Pain grimaces his eyes. The blossoms’...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2021 | DO, ED, EM, Ho, OL, RA
The Range of American Letters Including e e cummings The English language in the farther west Can be as harsh as sneering Ambrose Bierce Or roaring Robinson Jeffers. The zest Appears in Marquis’s tomcat Bill, fierce Beside Mehitabel and Archie. Calm Was English in...
by phillipw | Jul 30, 2021 | AN, GR, NU, OL, RA, RU
Wearing Only Sunlight and Beauty, the Racer on the Track at Ancient Olympia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dressed only in the sunshine and his skin He steps as strongly as a stallion to The line. He...
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 | Mar 9, 2021 | AG, OL
The Alien I woke and saw it there above my bed, A shocking thing to look up to. At first It frightened—did a number on my head. Because of horror films, it wasn’t worst Of those I’ve seen, but, hey, it loomed obscene There, almost scaly, dried out...
by phillipw | Dec 18, 2020 | AG, EL, OL
Two Souls in One Body With me an extra self comes. He is gray, Not blond, just like a Troy Donahue Has been grayed out. The PC’s bright array Goes dim as if a mist damped down the view Of Surfside 6. This self hulks, wrinkled, in The background or takes over...
by phillipw | Sep 15, 2020 | BI, CH, DE, GO, IS, JU, KO, LE, OL, QU, RE
Dead Sea Salt, not Caves “Many soul-destroying things/In folded tablets” ~ T. S. Brandreth, The Iliad of Homer, 1816 I know those soul-destroying things, those things In ancient texts on parchment, vellum, or Papyrus, rolled or folded. Suffering...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AN, AR, DE, DO, IM, JE, MU, OL, OR, PI, PO
Πιερία Pieria Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Pieria was laid with plains and peaks, The highest one Olympus, when the gods Set forth the world. Poseidon’s seashore speaks And gives...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | AT, BU, CO, EL, LA, LO, NI, OL, SA, SO, SP, TH, VI
They Loved Sovereignty and Liberty Most “And the Lacedæmonians offer sacrifices to Love before they go to battle, thinking that safety and victory depend on the friendship and those who stand side by side in the battle array. And the Cretans, in their line of battle,...
by phillipw | Jul 17, 2020 | OL, PO, WA
The Luxury of Peace Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Long centuries before the growth of hate...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | AN, OL, PO, Uncategorized, WA
Poetry is Not the Lever and Fulcrum of Archimedes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The full-flowering Scottish tradition of Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas was defeated when Scotland was defeated.” ~...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | AN, MA, OL
Zero Truth from Ancient India or the Olmecs It wasn’t an Islamic scholar who First formulated arithmetic’s zero. No matter how much Muslims might want to Deny that fact, the actual hero, An ancient not even slightly linked with The Arab world, did it. The simple fact...
by phillipw | Apr 30, 2020 | AN, OL
He and His Old English is so foreign to us now That most of us are lost if we attempt To read it. Modern words do not allow The old ones to come through. New words pre-empt The alphabet and sense of older terms. Some letters are too strange. Those...
by phillipw | Apr 30, 2020 | AN, OL
We Have to be More Sensitive than Bloodhounds in Oblivion “Apart from ‘Cædmon’s Hymn’, we cannot date any Old English poem.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The Story of Poetry, 11 The poets are completely lost. Those scops Have disappeared completely like a fog Told in a tale,...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2020 | OL
Ancient Youthful Masculinity Eight hundred years before the Christ was born, Oympic games rose up in glory, sweat, And blood. On hairy bodies (that were shorn Of clothing) manly arms and torsos met And grappled, struggles complicated by The slickness on the skin of...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2020 | OL
The Olympics From distant parts, as far as the Black Sea, Far flung as eastern Spain and all around The Greek dispersion’s width, divinity Called men to try themselves on summer ground. The hottest time of year was chosen for The Games. Why Zeus picked...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2020 | AN, OL
776 B.C. to 393 A.D. The sprint, the one event, the only race Was solemn, sacred, holy. Gods leaned down And over clouds to watch a handsome face Push forward to deserve the victor’s crown. No one, except those gods perhaps, could know Just how...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2020 | MY, OL
Gravity: the Greeks and the Old Testament How Hitler-like and heavy is the past, How wonderful and marble-like its weight Upon our brains and guts. The Greeks loom vast; … The Hebrews, too. Their fires in myth frustrate. We can’t escape to newness. We are...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2020 | FU, OL
Olimpio Fusco Unconscious of his Needs … An artist’s model does what he is told. Stand there. Sit under that. Now spread that thigh. He doesn’t have to know why he must fold His hips beside a knife or gun. His eye Must look away, to left, or up. Perhaps He...
by phillipw | Jan 7, 2020 | FU, OL, SA, SI
Olimpio Fusco ~ Olimpio Fusco by John Singer Sargent An agony of beauty is this head, His hair, his throat. The shadowed neck alone Is hurtful to the heart. This thoroughbred Has hardly grown his Adam’s apple. Shone In their perfection are the...
by phillipw | Dec 30, 2019 | OL
The Belles of Ouzeley Her eyes reject the shape of weeping trees, Or so she says. Perhaps her words might mean Or emphasize some other point, or tease Me with outrageous thought, some Byzantine Mind game. Her outré stance certainly got My piqued attention like a...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | OL
Apple and Lotus Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. ~ The Lotus-eaters, Alfred,Lord Tennyson Society’s decided I would be Best...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2019 | FR, OL, TR
Free Travel Passes for Dirty Old FФckers The major problem with the travel pass Is that it packs the coaches with old folk Like me. Of course it pains me to be crass, But, bluntly, frankly no one with egg yolk Hair, auburn, carrot top, or even brown (Or brilliant...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2019 | OL
The sprint, the one event, the only race Was solemn, sacred, holy. Gods leaned down And over clouds to watch a handsome face Push forward to deserve the victor’s crown. No one, except those gods perhaps, could know Just how momentous was this triumph, for It led to...