by phillipw | Dec 26, 2019 | PO, RI, VE
A Broader Canvas The house guest, Rimbaud, full of polite tact As usual, demanded that a pic Of some poor long-dead person, who now lacked The decency to avoid having sick- Looking mold on her forehead, be removed. If he had only known his lover’s mere,...
by phillipw | Nov 19, 2019 | AN, MU, PO
The Greek Gods Must Have Loved Simplistic Singing Fragment of Oxyrynchus hymn, Wikipedia The ancient Greeks were primitive about Their choral music. It was like a grade School choir in unison, with notes devout In worship of Apollo. One lyre played— Or aulos with...
by phillipw | Nov 3, 2019 | PO
A Single Finger One single finger pointing to a God, That sign is what a poem ought to be. A sonnet is a temple’s carved facade And offers formal serendipity, A mystic insight from a hand scab marked By Christ’s stigmata. Francis made that rhyme. His...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2019 | KE, PO
The Political Poet I really LUV the way they try to see A poet’s politics. The latest life Of Keats puts forward a pitiful plea To think of him as if the loving strife Inside him isn’t quite the point. His heart And lungs were doomed and we’re supposed to care...
by phillipw | Oct 18, 2019 | PO, PO
On the Literature Shelves A poem rests upon the page. That rest Is calmer than the calmest man. The lines Have no desire. They are not like a chest With nipples, hair, or heartbeat that defines Hard ribcage yearnings. Poems do not want A reader or his...
by phillipw | Oct 11, 2019 | PO, PO
Poetry, the Encyclopedia: Hesiod, St. Luke and St. Paul About eight hundred years before the first Of Christian poetry (Magnificat And Paul on Charity) there came a burst Of hatred from a crofter in a spat Hesiod? About his brother, verses filled with bile For...