by phillipw | Feb 26, 2020 | AB, AN, HA, RO, YE
…..Suffocated Devotions ……….“the fame of his lost love” Who cares about the love of Yazid choked Forever in that clogging of the throat, About Antinous, whose death is cloaked In rumors and suspicions as they float Above the marble whiteness of...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2020 | AR, DE, LO, PA, RI, RO, VE
HMS Implacable “Because you loved me as it had to be.” ~ Paul Verlaine in “To Arthur Rimbaud” We love the thought of love and fate combined. We love the grand idea that lust is out Of our control like earthquakes. Disinclined To...
by phillipw | Feb 21, 2020 | RO
Lucifer after Love It used to be that every breath was you. Every step I took — you were the reason. A pulse thrilled through an artery and blue Vein; you were throbbing it. Now a treason In heaven has congealed my chest to rock. It splinters as it...
by phillipw | Feb 21, 2020 | RO
Negative Space It used to be that when I spoke your name The air would shimmer with auroras high Above the fjords. It almost caused a flame Beyond the spines of mountains. In the sky Ghost solar flares much higher than the pole Were captured as...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | LO, RI, RO, VE
Pleasure, Prussian Pain: Verlaine Remembers Arthur’s Eyes Your eyes went blue in through my heart, straight through The blue that was my heart and bored through night, Straight through my night and out into a new Blue dawn, a morn so full of blue and might That...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | LO, RI, RO, VE
Verlaine Conducts the Tribunal: Rimbaud’s Eyes I try to fathom why he has that haze In fluorite eyes. No one can tell. I’ve asked His friends about that gaze. They all go blank. Not one of them when tasked To give interpretation of his black And...
