by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | BY, RI
Byron and the Boyfriend He Never Got to Meet A man’s poetic quality depends On his capacity for love, or so Said Rimbaud. More like lust. His lovers, friends And innocent bystanders saw the glow Of his to devotion to his verse. His heart? . . . No...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | CH, RI, ST
Charles Randall Taulelle II “moons pursuing one another” ~ Arthur Rimbaud The moon comes close. The moon comes close to us And we go crazy. We are moons as well. We suffer from past scarring and fresh pus Loads, giving us our wounded look. We swell...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | RI
Rudeness and Lice ………… Le jeune Rimbaud knew no words for thanks. “Where would the boy have learned them from, how could He have embraced them?” his teacher asked. Blanks Like this appeared in what he understood, This poet, as a...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | RI
The Eyes Have It “The man was tall, well-built, almost athletically with the perfect oval face of an angel in exile, with untidy light brown hair and eyes of disturbing pale blue” — Paul Verlaine His irises were doubly blue, dark blue And azure circled. Or...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | KE, RI, VE
Keats, Rimbaud, Verlaine Day after day I sit and write French verse Forms, villanelles and terzanelles. At noon I leave the British Library. “Much worse Existences,” I say, smugly, “are strewn Across the urban universe.” Today I noticed from the bus Paul...
by phillipw | Nov 17, 2019 | RI, VE
The Price of Poetry French Wikipedia “It’s Verlaine just arrived from Brussels…. He is handsome in his own way, and, despite being severely short of clothes, gives no sign of being overwhelmed by...
