by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | CA, FL, SI, WH, WI, WO
As Dead As Sabbath-keeping Saints Columba and Patrick on Their Long Lost Shores Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I cannot quite call back to mind and heart My father’s voice, not even when he told...
by phillipw | Sep 27, 2023 | CO, GA, LO, PI, RO, SA, SI, ST, TE, Uncategorized
Harlequin in Guise of Tuberculosis Hovering When love is played in luscious settings, clowns Are needed. Sad or comic they can be But never tragic, really, dressed in gowns That do not give the game away. We see Them loving like doom’s humans, threatening clown Just...
by phillipw | Sep 14, 2023 | JO, KE, SA, SI, ST, TE
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “…very witty and intelligent and divinely beautiful….But, alas, very fragile.” Siegfried Sassoon writing to Henry Festing-Jones...
by phillipw | May 29, 2023 | AU, SI, WH, WI, WO
Aunt Wilma Singing “The Holy City” in the Tiny White Concrete Block Church in Sabbath Titusville Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem What feelings would my father have enjoyed While sitting in the elder’s...
by phillipw | May 11, 2023 | PH, SA, SI
The Opposite of a Pastel Rainbow If you were god Apollo, you could tell The sun hawks, “Bring adventure to me here In form of youth and let the man expel Opponents of the notion that male fear Is part of worship and of love. Let him Hold bravery in himself...
by phillipw | Apr 23, 2023 | BE, MA, SC, SI, Uncategorized
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Prophets among Us on Civilisations and Acting like Hubble and Webb Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Those vaster minds show greater grasp of things, So, so much...
by phillipw | Oct 5, 2022 | FO, HA, SA, SI, Ta, WO, WW
The Fox Hunter Flushes Out the Fritzies Single-handedly with Bayonet and with the Same Fingers that Wrote His Poetry Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He loved his poetry and music, such Like things,...
by phillipw | May 23, 2022 | BE, FA, MA, PE, SI
If men desire to find belief, to sing It out through throats works best to make the soul Embrace it. This will make the sought faith zing Behind their hearts and manliness’s whole. The faith will throb straight through the tenor throats, The baritones and basses’...
by phillipw | Feb 9, 2022 | AU, FA, HA, SI
Silence Beyond Silence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The quietness; A chestnut leaf sinks Through the still water. ~Shōhaku When all the world is hushed, the quietest sounds...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2021 | DE, SH, SI, TR
Simple ’Tis the gift to be simple ~ Shaker song The sea seems simple in our sight today. The waves, if varied, do not vary much. They come and go. They come and go. The way The sun comes up is ordinary, such As many days before. Of course it finds The mountain...
by phillipw | Dec 12, 2021 | BI, RO, SI
The Last Rose of Summer Not Alone Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Joan Sutherland – “Last Rose of Summer” (1963) – YouTube [Turn down the volume on this old recording or...
by phillipw | Nov 6, 2021 | BO, DU, GA, Ho, MU, PA, PH, SE, SI, ST, WH
Jalousie in Natural Light—Avant la Rêve For Mrs. Pat Silver and Bob Stubbs She chose a piece called “Jalousie” for flute And keyboard that was strange to both the boys, But then the both of them were teens. To suit The ceremony “Jalousie” had poise But sounded...
by phillipw | Oct 24, 2021 | AD, AN, GR, JO, KE, LA, ME, OV, SI, SU
On First Looking into Ovid’s Metamorphoses For Adam Meister and Suyash Singh His hand was heart. His heart was hand. The hand Was heart and more. This hand was soul and mind. He learned that there are more than Sabbaths, bland And filled with trifling things like...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2021 | FA, IV, MO, OB, PH, SI, WH, WO
Single Perspective Single Perspective Single Perspective All All All Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The single-hearted skylark calls to mind My brothers and my father and my true, My truest self. Our...
by phillipw | May 22, 2021 | NA, SI, TO
The Yellowstone Experience and Grand Canyon Experience, etc. Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We see the sinkholes roiling up from stained Ennui. We gawp at geysers spewing scald Of superheated water...
by phillipw | Apr 29, 2021 | CH, DA, MI, SA, SI
Occult Messaging on Holy Saturday [If you are reading this sonnet on a mobile phone, it will look best if you read it in landscape view, but maybe you should turn it to portrait view to see the painting by Salvador Dali at the end.] Modern poetry modern verse ...
by phillipw | Apr 18, 2021 | BE, ID, LO, PE, PU, SI
The Two Domes on the Gurdwara Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The dome of gold is higher than the white One. Both are perfect. “Innocence,” says one, “Is perfect, flawless, like a rigid rite.” Yet...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2021 | CA, FR, JU, PH, PS, SI
Panicky Purity The phantoms of the heart and brain are drugs From soul and not from science. They are like Some sort of dreamlike but effective plugs Created for our therapy. A dyke Holds back the floods… and heart holds back the brain And rigid...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2021 | CO, KO, MU, SI
“in music out of sight” Korean courts heard music long ago And watched silk dancing, swirrrrrƏls of silk sleeves. These musics and these patterns were aglow In royal eyes and ears beneath tiled eaves Of palaces but now the motions, notes, And melodies are so far...
by phillipw | Mar 23, 2021 | DE, SI
Obliteration When once you die, your secrets will be sure, As sure as Druids long gone now will speak No more of their religion, which is pure In silence. Hieroglyphs beneath the peak Of some poor pyramid where they have been Destroyed will hold its...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2021 | GA, GE, ME, PO, SI, SK
The Lark Ascending “But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening . . . As he to silence nearer soars” “The Lark Ascending” ~ George Meredith He hopes to raise such images, and thoughts, And beauties in his poems as the...
by phillipw | Jan 6, 2021 | KI, MA, SE, SI
Hard as an Anvil and a Stone …. “bygge” ~ Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Stuck in, pulled out, stuck in, pulled out, again Again, again, again, the weapon he had found That only he could wield, the best of men, The one to do it, stout young Arthur crowned...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2020 | BL, CH, IN, JU, RE, SA, SI, ST, VI
Inspiration Our days and nights are blind like Homer, blind And seeing, deep and wide, but still inept. Time carries us through life but like a mind Confused through madness. Life remains adept At fraud, poetically and just with scales Upon its...
by phillipw | Dec 21, 2020 | AU, BL, CL, FA, PE, PU, SI
Physics and Metaphysics Clean Water and Black Hole Scars Shizukasa wa kuri no ha shizumu shimizu kana The quietness; A chestnut leaf sinks Through the clear water. ~Shōhaku The simple, clear, transparent, and the pure Are summed up in the...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2020 | DR, IV, NI, SI
Silence in Nested Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He suddenly and stupidly, an ox That suffers hammer blow to brain, saw he Had never heard a noise in dreams, a box So insulated that they all...
by phillipw | Oct 23, 2020 | DE, FE, FR, PH, PS, SI
Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness Sigmund Freud: “There is nothing instinctual in us which responds to a belief in death.” Freud also says, “This may even be the secret of heroism.” Our hearts refuse to nod to death. No, more Than that, they fail to hear it...
by phillipw | Oct 16, 2020 | HE, MU, PE, PO, SE, SI, SO, VA
The Point of Poetry and Song Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A poem or a song can be as fierce As knife points. They are neutral, though, about The hole they make. They care not whom they pierce...
by phillipw | Oct 10, 2020 | FO, HE, ME, SI, ST
Frozen Heaven and Hot Hues Hell Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When I am dead, my secrets will be turned To frost up on a pane, up in the New Jerusalem, or maybe will be burned In stained glass down...
by phillipw | Oct 6, 2020 | FE, LO, RO, SI, TR, VI
Closer and Closer Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Am I the vine and you the fence? I feel Perhaps it is the other way around: You vine—and I the mesh. What would appeal Most, though,...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2020 | MA, OR, SI
Direction If you were on a ship and needed song To urge you, would you want the Sirens or The voice of Orpheus to make you long? If you were on an ancient ship, what shore Would you desire, a cove with killer rocks Prepared by gorgeous women prodding...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2020 | AU, SI, WH, WI
Woodrow and Wilma Recalled in a Mystic Setting “and scream among thy fellows” He walked at night inside a dream along The sands of Cape Canaveral, the shore Woodrow is in the dungarees Beside his father’s boyhood. A song Had touched it long ago, a song much...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | PU, SA, SI, ST, TR
The Truth Exposed Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “…in Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell, §178; after he has described the garments of the angels, some of which glow with flame, some of which...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | GU, SI, SP
Edict How dull the gilded dome seems under clouds Of London gray. The perfect, swerving shape Looks saddened as if wearing mourning shrouds, Or dirtiness, or veils of thinnest crepe. Such beauty should not be degraded thus. But London,...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2020 | SI
Love and Delight …… …………………………..~Wikiwand I love simplicity. Don’t you? Why choose A decadence of fretwork when instead A simple life and heart are pure? Tattoos On skin and soul...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2020 | SI
Gurdwara Domes, White and Gold The gold dome and the white domes, prettier Than truth, present themselves above the sprawl Of western London with its grittier Industrial huge storage tanks. They brawl Beside the domes with practicality And oxidation (green). Tanks...
by phillipw | Jan 12, 2020 | SI
The Age of Valentino and Chaplin ………. With all the clarity of silver’s sheen Yet maybe with a patina of gray, The soundless light fills up the sterling screen. The characters and scenes are like ballet But of a stiff and jerky sort. Perhaps This...
by phillipw | Jan 7, 2020 | FU, OL, SA, SI
Olimpio Fusco ~ Olimpio Fusco by John Singer Sargent An agony of beauty is this head, His hair, his throat. The shadowed neck alone Is hurtful to the heart. This thoroughbred Has hardly grown his Adam’s apple. Shone In their perfection are the...
by phillipw | Jan 1, 2020 | SI
When Portraits Were in Silhouette When portraits were in silhouette, they told The truth. Sliced outlines filled with black reveal The human situation. Seldom gold- And sterling-leaf were rubbed on to conceal Our inner murkiness. Of course if they Had been applied,...
by phillipw | Nov 15, 2019 | SI
Mute Choruses and Chanting Some silent kings in silent eras long Before the thought of history arose Have left lacunae like some torn lost song Or tuneless chants of silence. Joys and woes Of royalty lie deep in neutered times Among unwritten blanknesses. We guess...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2019 | AU, CO, PA, SI, SY
Burdens of Light The silences of country life are more Like shades than sounds. So quiet that they seem Like pastel tints in watercolors or The light beneath acanthus leaves we dream. Those silences are more like mist at dawn Above a pond than like a lack...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2019 | DA, JO, SI
Yawn No messages (or meaninglessly brief Ones) make romantic oceans dry to salt. The tree that first proclaimed a heart-shaped leaf Withers. The swift-hoofed race comes to a halt, The red stallion stumbling, breaking a leg. The killing isn’t murder,...
by phillipw | Sep 21, 2019 | Ho, SI
The Torn Shirt Morning 0 Your stream of frank sincerity has talked Him out of love—of loving you, I mean— Attempts at sentiment too often blocked By honesty from you. The desperate, keen, Pathetic fire he fanned inside his heart Was doused and doused and doused...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2019 | LO, NI, SI, WI
Aunt Wilma Forces Me ..to Plant a Gardenia on Lorena’s Grave Aunt Wilma is second from the left What happens to a voice when it is dead? The vocal cords will rot, of course, the lungs Will shrivel, wither. In a coffin bed The voice will evanesce like...