by phillipw | Sep 3, 2023 | AN, DI, GR, RA, RE, SE
The Ancient Gods in Perfect Geometric Shapes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The skyward gods (like levitating shapes Of gold) float flawless, utter in the air, The ether, far above their crimes and...
by phillipw | Jan 17, 2023 | GR, RA, WO
The Young Soldier with a “Whimsical Stammer” “Good-bye to all music for ever,” wrote The poet, Siegfried. This was how his friend, His fellow officer and friend, caused throat In Siegfried, Heldentenor-like, to bend Towards tears because of the piano played By...
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 | Dec 13, 2021 | RA
Brighter in Echo than Gold Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The richness of the farmhouse is its fields Of rippled wheat or roaring yellow rape. The farmland opens up its yellow yields In turn and...
by phillipw | Dec 12, 2021 | DE, RA
Rape, Shadows, Spring Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When rape blares out in shadowed parts of fields, The spring is past. Rape glares in yellow swathes Across the farm. All other...
by phillipw | Oct 1, 2021 | RA
Replacing Beauty with Glamor Improvements are improvements and they’re not. The Silicon King Kongs hold us (Faye Ray) And from their heights they treat us all like snot. They say their next improvement will be way, Way better but like love of beastly Kong, It...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2021 | BI, BU, RA, RO
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The 1960s weren’t exactly right For stars who touched each other in the way That audiences hated. Lovers might Endeavor to keep journalists at bay, But Robert Benevides...
by phillipw | Sep 26, 2021 | AE, DE, EM, PR, RA, WA, WH
Barbaric Yawp His “poetry” is not so much a thing Of barbarism as it is like Greek Or Roman oratory. In its ring It has the sound of bombast. No, not sleek, But more like overstated prose tricked out As verse on pages. Rhetoric high-flown Quite...
by phillipw | Sep 2, 2021 | FR, HA, PO, RA
Japanese and Chinese Poets Imagined Frogs Performing Poems Te wo tsuite uta mōshiaguru kawazu hana Placing his hands on Mud, the frog respectfully Recites his poem. ~ Sōkan Those poets speak of frogs producing lines Of poetry. Such poets of the pond Gulp forth...
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 | Aug 1, 2021 | BI, MU, RA, SK
Invisible Music Made Opaque The rain falls down as if in chords, as if A symphony in quietness, playing on The quietest of instruments as stiff As thin percussion ones with brushes drawn Across them, metal brushes on a drum. The only notes we hear as notes...
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 3, 2021 | AM, AN, BI, GA, GR, ME, RA, SE, ZE
iOvid Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem What Ovid did two thousand years ago, The World Wide Web has lately caught up with. He did it many, many times. The slow Web has, at last,...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2021 | GO, RA
The Opposite of Rape Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A mountain turns and sticks it peak, hard, down, And burrows in the ground. The action brings No glow like lava. It does not even bring a...
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 22, 2021 | DO, FU, RA, SE
Subjugation An inch more deeply in, and you will be The emperor. Has no one told you that? More likely you have learned it as the key To living like the spoiled Persian cat Has learned that biting robins with his fangs Trumps petting by a...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2021 | EM, PO, RA, TR
Sexual Torture The phrase in Japanese “comes smelling out” Becomes just “wafted.” What a letdown such Attempts result in, only a Girl Scout Translation. Poetry deploys a crutch When being forced across from foreign tongue To foreign tongue. When...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2021 | AE, BE, ES, LO, PE, RA, SE
Virginal In dusk of night the moon begins to rise. Enough of it invades the garden with The light the peony desires. The wise One there succumbs to Oriental myth And spreads white petals even further to Embrace the gift the heavens offer. White Adheres...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2020 | RA, SE
Enthralling Hair His lust goes blunt and sharp at once. It shoves Itself like cudgel and like blade. The club Is made of iron that feels like rusty gloves Created to assault for utmost drub Of body parts. Deep bruising is its goal. An urgency for trauma...
by phillipw | Dec 5, 2020 | BO, BR, KU, PL, RA, SM, TI
Titusville Spelled KKK “There’s no place like home.” If I were given Judy Garland’s shoes, I wouldn’t click their ruby heels to go To childhood Titusville. I wouldn’t choose The 1950s there where time was slow As Playalinda tides that inched up on The palest...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2020 | AU, CO, DA, EM, FA, HE, Ho, MA, NE, RA, TH, TR
Mystics of Concord Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem New England thinkers mixed autumnal views With leaves from Homer, also Dante’s leaves. That blinded poet managed to suffuse The thoughts...
by phillipw | Oct 12, 2020 | AC, AN, Ho, PO, RA
Reeking Champ Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Achilles exists only through Homer.” ~ François-René de Chateaubriand in his preface to Les Natchez, 1826 “Achilles was a heel.” ~ Lapel badge...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | BI, BO, GA, HE, JE, JU, LO, MA, RA, ZE
The next two sonnets may offend some readers. If you think you may be offended, please do not read them. Painless Pleasure: Two contradictory versions of the myth of Ganymede “to be very eager in the pursuit of pleasure is to go hunting for pain…. ...
by phillipw | May 28, 2020 | AR, BI, CA, CH, DU, FR, MA, RA, Ta
Feline Thoughts on Pedigree The English, as usual not nonplussed By foreign aristocracy, impressed No, not at all by noble, upper crust, Unbishoped Talleyrand, were not hard pressed To sneer at Duc de Biron. After all, Detesting frog and wog, Brits would snigger At...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | AC, BR, KN, RA
Jerusalem His face is mild, as mild as Elgar chords Set down on paper, or a late June day In Gloucestershire, as mild as sleeping lords In Parliament. His young beard’s a display Of masculinity, or maybe just A statement of his academic bent....
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | BR, CO, MA, RA, SY
Musical Rightness in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room The space between his eyebrows is so wide It might contain nine symphonies, and all The works of Mozart, or the whole deep tide Of oceans that we label music. Tall Conceptions captured in long swelling bars...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | BE, BR, EA, MA, RA, WA
Death Defied in the British Library I sit across from Wayne, but decades on And much improved. Not only young again, But cuter nose, and lips more cushion drawn, More velvet-shaped—too lovely, these, to deign To pray or sing a Sabbath verse. The hair Is lovely,...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | Ho, MY, RA, SA, SE, ST, TE
Ad Augusta per Angusta— to Elevated Goals through Narrow Paths Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A vision of the narrow path to high Perfection, highest pitch of tenor goals, With something like a throat...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AE, BE, EM, ES, FE, FR, HA, LO, PO, RA, Uncategorized
Haydn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A poem does not need to be about Emotions, yours or anyone’s. Instead A sonnet may avoid a tear or shout. Indeed the lines could be about your...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | RA, SP
Like Brancusi’s “Bird in Space”: Think McLaren P1, Ferrari 458, Lamboghini Countach, Maserati MC12, Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport, Ferrari F40, and Koenigsegg Agera R It’s more like on the pedestal of art, Smooth knife glissando cutting through the night Of motor...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | BU, DI, EM, EZ, JO, KE, KH, OM, OR, PE, PO, RA, RO, SA
The Bones of Orpheus, the Hair of Keats Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If we collected poets’ body parts And put them in glass cases, would the world Adore them there like saints? Pickled hearts Of...
by phillipw | May 3, 2020 | AE, BE, ES, LO, RA, UG, WA
Remember, Remember Not Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Pause. Think of all the beauty lost in time, The beauties are hidden in the loss of days We never think of, beauties lost by crime, Like...
by phillipw | Apr 11, 2020 | AN, RA, VI
Nude in the Gymnasium, Dressed in Modesty at Home “For the ancients, poetry socialized people; for the moderns, it reflects or promotes alienation.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 10 The ancient poets, epic poets, taught Their boys to find the maleness meant for...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2020 | RA
Rapping in Ancient Greece If only rappers spoke in ancient Greek, We wouldn’t have abominable rhymes A mile a minute, everything too sleek And slick and sick, full of sexual crimes. If only rappers spoke an ancient tongue In which the notion of rhyme, rhyme, rhyme,...
by phillipw | Jan 24, 2020 | IS, PR, RA
[This is about one of the guards at the entrance to the Rare Books and Music Reading Room.] Besides, I’m the Foreigner I like him for his gentle, almost sly Smile, nearly shy, but, no, not quite. A smile That’s mostly in the lips but in the eye Is boosted on a face...
by phillipw | Jan 2, 2020 | RA
Somnolent Spirituality Schools closed at noon. The libraries have stopped Their service early. Government has shut Its doors. The spiritual who can have lopped The hours they have to work to help with what Has been imposed on them by sacred word. They...
by phillipw | Dec 4, 2019 | CH, FR, LO, RA, ST
Charles Randall Stanfield He made the sound that stars make, rushing through The sky, my sky at least, that one inside My chest. My ribs contain celestial blue, That wounded blue that’s made when stars collide (Just two of them) when crashing there within My...
by phillipw | Nov 4, 2019 | RA
Sin Is Not Thinking If Eve had only thought about the text Surrounding her and meditated on The clear instructions given her, the hexed Catastrophe would not have gone To her destruction. All around her grew The scent of beauty. She saw all the hints Perfection...
by phillipw | Aug 19, 2019 | RA
Emptiness The streets are empty in the morning when The norm is bustling crowds. No one insists On hogging pavement space. The Muslim pen Has seen its gates all closed with Koran fists. There’s no one up, around. Not even school Kids drag their feet along. ...