by phillipw | Mar 10, 2021 | AL, CR, DE, ED, FA, GA, GR, Ho, SC, SM
Wandering in Warriston Cemetery “Smith contracted diphtheria in November 1866 and, although he seemed to have recovered by Christmas, was then struck down by typhus. He died at home on 5 January 1867 at the very beginning of his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in...
by phillipw | Jan 19, 2021 | ED, LO, PE, RO, SC
Embracing Dooms for His Regret The peonies’ white petals fallen on The garden ground instruct these two To part. The period for their love has gone. Just one of them attempts a passage through The muted condemnation of the flowers. The other turns his face away and...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, AG, DE, IM, PA, SC, TH
To the King of Greece The past attempts to speak. It tries to talk With words and other ruined things like stones That lie in heaps or carved acanthus stalk Of leaves in marble. Sometimes vellum tones Come up from opened scrolls. Occasionally Our history gives...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | IM, JA, SC
A New Heaven and Undirtied Earth For James Reis Forget the “thought” of Plato (Socrates) That stories, plays, and poetry can cope With only pasts, and now, and futures. Seize The truth instead. Create a newer scope By setting works in time that’s never been, That...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2020 | AN, CO, HU, PO, RH, SC
I Have Looked upon the Face of Jolliness The ancient Greeks in poetry were lewd As limericks, playful, silly as a stand Up joker on a comic’s platform, rude And crude, yep, far more rude than Russell Brand. Emitted from these ancient rhythmic throats Were poems...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | BO, PA, SC
Before the Internet in the Ancient World “Hellenistic culture was of necessity a culture of the book . . . : the age of the reader had arrived, and a poet was often a man speaking to a man, not to men.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 13 The audience grew smaller...
