by phillipw | Nov 17, 2019 | RI, VE
Not Nearly Twenty Thousand Leagues across the Sea Two poets took a science-fiction trip Together, leaving sonnet Europe for Modernity in London. Comic strip Futurity of hardness spread before Them: coal fed dragons belched out smoke and fire On rigid iron tracks...
by phillipw | Oct 30, 2019 | RI, VE
Rimbaud, the Seer, Speaks Somewhere among the beds and sheets of dreams Untroubled sexes sleep. They do not yearn For likeness only, nor for love that seems To need its opposite to make it burn. These drowsy flares are burning in slow, Unspoken prophecies the...
by phillipw | Oct 30, 2019 | LO, RI, VE
What We Learn in the Great College Street of Knowledge The worst conclusion to a crimson bout Of love is truth. We sniff the smell of facts And they are ugly mumbles. With his snout The poet gets the scent. His heart reacts Like pack hounds to the trail an orange...
by phillipw | Oct 17, 2019 | RI, VE
Three Septembers September 1871, September 1872 Septembers are the fateful months for falls. Septembers, not quite autumn yet, will start The way. They do not mean to hear the calls Of destiny, but there it is. They part The summer from its certain leaves and oaths...
by phillipw | Oct 15, 2019 | RI, VE
…….Paradox The rupture caused by Rimbaud, alcohol, And green absinthe destroyed fatherhood And Holy Matrimony. Like Saint Paul Struck down (but not by Jesus) Verlaine could See nothing till the scales fell from his eyes. Before that boy Verlaine had...
by phillipw | Oct 15, 2019 | RI, VE
Romances sans la Pitié Uncertain like a compass suffering pull From two strong poles, or like a planet near Two tugging stars, Paul mirrored a saint full Of doubt while standing on the streets of sheer Bright gold in heaven but consumed by lust To fall to hellfire...
