by phillipw | Feb 22, 2024 | CH, ST
The Pleiades and the Church of the Savior Bing Videos When he has died, perfection throbs through all, Not just through him but also through a height Complete, distilled, sublimed. An Everest tall With peak of ice both see-through and pure white Like heaven’s...
by phillipw | Feb 22, 2024 | CH, ST, Uncategorized
For Charles Randall Stanfield on 71st His Birthday Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If suns were smog and smog were suns, if fog Were clean and bright yet suns’ corona’s dim Like haar, if deserts’ sun...
by phillipw | Feb 12, 2024 | CH, FR, MA, ST
“One Soul in Bodies Twain” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Seventh Type of Ambiguity ~ William Empson A single photon passes through two slits At once, impossible, yet not quite so. The quantum...
by phillipw | Jan 14, 2024 | GA, HA, HE, NO, ST
The Female Pheasant’s Handsome Lover Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The Noh fan opens out upon the stage. The female pheasant’s lover is the point. Her attitude to beauty makes her sage: When males are...
by phillipw | Nov 5, 2023 | BL, CH, ST, UN, WI
Not Holy Enough my Bow He gave to me the end of this, a string Of gold. I tried to make it endless, pure. His love of Heaven’s white hot God might sing Perfection. Love like that, though, could not cure His sickness. My affection also could Not heal...
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 | Aug 21, 2023 | CH, DE, ST
Tiny or Immense, Who Cares? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The hope we need at break of day waits, small, And does not have to be as large as sky And cosmos in the blue, but only tall Enough for each...
by phillipw | May 28, 2023 | CH, MA, ST, Uncategorized, WH
E-scrapbooks of Holiness Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The images consulted most are those Of love, well, lovers. Highest in the search Are photographs where we and lovers pose. Clichés count...
by phillipw | Jan 31, 2023 | MU, ST
The Opposite of Agnostic Swooning The reason God made starlings fly was for Those murmurations. Nothing else about These birds is worth the trouble. Swoop and soar In each elastic shape–they leave no doubt That they are Sky Divinity’s broad span, As...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2022 | CH, ST
Disaster More Likely than Not A loved one with catastrophe inside His hair made up of crow-like black of curls, Disaster in the shine of eyes a bride Would die for, semen like the off-white pearls That naughty gods might drip when they forsake The ones that...
by phillipw | May 10, 2022 | AR, ED, MI, ST
Love is Empty, Friendship Dead Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Pierrot, a macaroon! I cannot live without a macaroon!” The puppets, dressed in satin, purply, ruffs, And skirts of apple green, cerise...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2022 | CH, FI, LO, SE, ST, UN
April, August, Autumn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We both flirt April with each other, you And I, at first. The clouds, if any, rise In white and seem not tinged except with blue, Perhaps...
by phillipw | Mar 25, 2022 | BR, HE, RU, ST
Into Deep Water Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In front of Brooke’s veranda stood a dock. This wooden altar offered diving height To deep blue water. He could interlock With beauty,...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, GE, HE, OK, RU, SE, ST, Ta
Tropical Heat Meets English Poetry Together Taatamata and taut Brooke Spread open her vanilla orchid flower. While it was tropic pink, not white, it took His darker flesh invasion and its power. Its power spread open her Tahiti flesh And spread it, thrust it fleshy,...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, JA, LO, NO, OL, RU, ST, UN
Trinity’s Anchorite in Gentle Agony James Strachey, lacking goldsmiths’ stunning hair, Sat by his non-gold fire alone inside His Cambridge room and felt the flare Of shrined romance within his ribs. It dyed His arteries and veins the color of A soul in...
by phillipw | Mar 14, 2022 | BR, DE, IN, RU, SA, ST
Not Religion but Death At first church fame held up his lines to heights Near immortality. Saint Paul’s robed Dean Had read “The Soldier” in the lectern rites Of Christ’s domed space before the altar screen. It seems that Brooke knew this. ...
by phillipw | Mar 8, 2022 | BR, CU, GA, HA, JA, ST, UN
Cool as a Thick-haired Cucumber “I have need to busy my heart with quietude.” ~ Rupert Brooke James suffered like a teenybopper lass In love with manufactured pop star guys. He hovered like an altar boy at mass Outside the poet’s rooms. He hoped his eyes Would...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2022 | BE, BI, BR, MA, RU, SC, ST
Big Boy Hunk The Big Boy Hunk that isn’t Rupert Brooke On Skyros is just too, too like the false, False images built up around him, like a crook Has pulled a dirty trick but wants to waltz With you, no matter what. The Big Boy Hunk Stands towering...
by phillipw | Mar 5, 2022 | BR, JA, NO, OL, SE, ST
A Hovering Sexual Position Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The poet, Rupert Brooke, felt trouble with Deciding what his sex position was. He listened to his gay friends’ favorite myth...
by phillipw | Feb 23, 2022 | CH, ST
After the Storm the Council Chopped Up the Birch Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Quite like that birch tree on the nearby green, Chuck stood both tall and slim, and black and white. He leaned a bit...
by phillipw | Feb 10, 2022 | AU, ET, SA, ST, TI
Ex Nihilo is a Joke Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “. . .it starts with an empty universe” ~ Stephen Fry, Cosmos, vii An empty universe is paradox. In such a boundless space there’d be no...
by phillipw | Jan 16, 2022 | CH, DE, LO, RO, ST
Laid Asleep “we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul.” ~ William Wordsworth If laid asleep beside each other, we Might find some rest at last. We never laid In doubled love. Love’s serendipity Was...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2021 | BR, HE, RU, SE, ST, Ta
Brown Beauty and Others Left Behind “more tourist still than soldier” ~ Rupert Brooke America and Canada, their spine Of Rocky Mountains, called across the sea, Their men and women waiting, near supine Already. Rupert left behind debris Of men and women who had seen...
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2021 | BR, GA, Ho, JA, LO, RO, RU, ST, UN
A Solitary Fire In bobby socks the teenyboppers used To sigh or scream about a baritone, Or tenor, or falsetto voice. Amused, Their objects of desire jived through a zone Of smugness like a phoenix on its pyre. Before these screeching fans, young...
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 | Sep 19, 2021 | CH, ST
Black Hair in Heaven More Beautiful than Absalom with Joab’s Darts through his Heart and Hanging from the Tree His hair was black like Satan’s when he swayed Beside the thrones God and Christ and swirled To simpering music while the millions prayed In ranks of...
by phillipw | Sep 7, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Seek Him Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “And turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” When language stumbles, and when things are bound To some eternal silence, yes,...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, DE, MA, ST
Smashed by Lightning into the Shenandoah Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Ecclesiastes 9:5 I wonder what he took to death of me. His death was whacking as a lightning strike. Then we were washed away. It...
by phillipw | Aug 24, 2021 | CH, MY, ST
Paler than See-through Vellum Decorated with Medieval Leaves and Gospel Writers Perhaps he stands among the Celtic saints As mystical as they with trees he killed. They stand together, he, and trees, and haints In chosen superstitions. Acorns tilled By eons are a...
by phillipw | Aug 17, 2021 | AQ, SA, ST, SU, TH
The Wealth of Logic and of Knowledge For Brian who has a mathematical mind A wealthy heather robes the royal fields. That purple is presented wide and high On hills. They take the flowering as it wields Its majesty then upward to the sky As Thomas raised theology...
by phillipw | Aug 16, 2021 | AD, CH, DR, FR, MA, ST
Vanilla Vermont I think the man I loved for many years, A druggie, lost in needles and cocaine, The man who caused so many useless tears, That man called Chuck, would find it quite inane That I am drinking coffee, milky stuff With lots of sweeteners...
by phillipw | Aug 8, 2021 | AN, HE, IS, SE, ST, TR
Iseut of the White Hands Slick She moves her white hands down to find his dark Disgustingness, exactly what her need Is in this darker moment. Long, and stark, And thick it promises disgusting seed If she is brave and desperate enough To take it everywhere...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2021 | CH, GO, ST
God’s Hard Bolt Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Since Charles has crossed the mountain, now he will Not see the cherry blossoms in the spring. He took me to the Mall but now the...
by phillipw | Jun 30, 2021 | CH, IN, LO, RO, ST
The One is Always First: Einstein’s Theory of Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The man who once was seen and now cannot Be seen is one. He never will be seen Again and yet he still is there. ...
by phillipw | Jun 28, 2021 | CA, DU, HE, LO, MA, ST
Cleaving on an Island Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The house on Merritt Island stood alone On sand. No doubt the sand had sandspurs set Among the weeds. Like a ramshackle throne It ruled...
by phillipw | Jun 6, 2021 | CH, CO, DR, RE, ST
Loose Needlework The sage walks round in circles. Blessings burn. The blessings burn farewell. They burn the facts. They never matter. They are there to turn To incense all your scarred up faithless acts Against your wife, and son, and Jesus, too, Those...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | AE, BE, BU, CH, MA, PH, RE, ST
No Hypocrisy or Self-deceiving in Esthetics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When Jesus speaks, the monasteries chant And convents count their beads. On Georgia’s roads His words are...
by phillipw | May 26, 2021 | CH, ST, TH
Dixieland Death in the Shenandoah I sleep each night with Charles in my bed. Not quite the whole of Charles’, but his hair Lies underneath my pillow near my head And not so near my heart. A sad affair You might well think, and that is true, except A beauty lingers...
by phillipw | May 21, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, MA, RE, RO, SP, ST, UN
Tightly Closed in Open April during the Cherry Blossom Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Remembering sapphire air, I think of you. We shared a cut gem spring which lasted long And long because the...
by phillipw | May 1, 2021 | AE, BE, DA, ES, FE, MI, PL, ST
The Data of Beauty Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I met Miss Universe when I was just A boy of seventeen. I’ve never quite Recovered from that moment. I was thrust By accident to grasp...
by phillipw | Apr 30, 2021 | OX, PA, ST, WE
Disclosure of Might in Slackness “The tree manifests the bodily power of the wind; The wave exhibits the spiritual nature of the moon.” The tree is strong but not quite strong enough. Its lack of strength unveils the power of wind. This tree thus weak reveals that...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2021 | DA, EL, HE, RO, SE, SP, ST
Repeat PerforMANce Repeat PerforMANce Repeat PerforMANce Repeat PerfoMANce…. Robert Sparks They danced in discos. That was not the point. The one was just a usual kind of bloke, Not gorgeous and not plain. He had the joint For humping in...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
What the Pharaohs Commanded in Looking Glasses Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He lives inside the past. Back then he filled A tiny room, but now it glows. The walls Are echoed glass. My spinal...
by phillipw | Apr 13, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
As Thermonuclear as Sodom Miraculously clouds of that hot sort That swirled around us, you and me, embraced Us. Arms like these do not allow retort. They hug as hot as those Elijah’s raced To heaven suffered. Yet then unlike those Our clouds held us together all...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2021 | CH, EL, OA, ST, TR
English Trees in Innocence For Charles Randall Stanfield The broad-limbed trees of perished English years And centuries are witnesses to realms Long gone. A duke or princess disappears While tallest peerages, the oaks and elms, Continue in their reign. They spread...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2021 | CH, DE, LO, ME, MO, ST
Submerged City You lie, a city now, beneath the clear Depths. You are still but we can see you move Because we knew you when you filled the sphere We call the past now. Memory can prove An old existence: archeology Can bring perfection up from underneath...
by phillipw | Apr 2, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
24-carat Dreamscape Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When dining off gold plates, I think of you, Yes, not of Greek ambassadors around The tables of the Persian court. Peru Might spring to mind where...
by phillipw | Apr 1, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
Prophecy from the Future Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You flew, the prophecy the future sent To me. You levitated up above My present and my past. My space/time bent Around you. This is...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2021 | CH, GA, ST, TH, WO
The Brief Gate into Ecstasy Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He raised his hands and wrists to Christ and all The world was changed. The evening worship paused As if no God existed. I, like...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2021 | CO, DE, JO, KE, ST, TU
Sovereign Keats Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm: That is the top of sovereignty. Hyperion II 203 To accept all With...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2021 | FA, IS, MA, RE, SA, ST
Righteous Believers Stop their Ears When Stephen, dragged for stoning, knelt at last, The Middle Eastern mob predicted our Times. Vicious truths lived, brutal, in the past And live outrageously. Their hour Is near, unending in that hateful realm. This hatred...
by phillipw | Mar 29, 2021 | AU, FE, GR, Ho, JO, SA, SE, ST
The Four Evils to be Overcome According to Saint John of the Cross: Joy, Hope, Fear, Grief The springtime brings her yellow joy on top Of green stems flaring. Then come pink and white Along the happy trees. We will not stop, They promise, even in...
by phillipw | Mar 21, 2021 | FU, HE, SE, ST
The Novelist at the Supermarket Till Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He looks through men and women and he sees Them not just outwardly but sees inside Them like a CT scan. His heart can tweeze Out...
by phillipw | Mar 19, 2021 | BL, BO, GA, ST, Uncategorized
Bob Stubbs Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He wallowed in his first epiphany. He could not bring himself to leave the thrill Of it behind. The first polyphony When it appeared in music...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2021 | EA, ER, HA, HE, HI, LO, MA, ME, SE, ST
Recollections Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Dawn comes and wakens up inside my core The reminiscences that sleep inside The past, that sleep there, stowed subconscious lore That...
by phillipw | Mar 7, 2021 | AD, GA, HE, Ho, LO, ST
It’s May! It’s May! The Month of “Yes, You May” Traditions here are moss grown, very green And healthy. Ordered ways have not gone down. The white dressed cricket teams can still be seen Though players’ skins may well be black or brown As maybe distant centuries...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2021 | EM, MA, PH, ST
The Tonic of Thought from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Not all of thought is good, but thinking heals, Or offers therapy. The thinkers past Give guidance in their...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2021 | CH, LO, RO, ST
A True Love Will you be tracing the scars on the fair Skin? (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme…) Will You rub limbs (herbals to cure)? Black curls, hair, And strongness of nostrils—now you must spill Like blood the therapies. Resurrection...
by phillipw | Jan 20, 2021 | HE, HU, IS, MA, MI, RO, SE, ST, TR
Iseut of the White Hands “[…] then he was such that all who saw him said that if he was not a brave knight he really must hate his fine body. And indeed he was so handsome that Iseut herself, who was called Iseut of the White Hands, fell madly in love with...
by phillipw | Jan 9, 2021 | CH, DE, ST
The Christian Tree Surgeon The disappearance of a man who loved The trees he killed is life contained in brief. Hiked up among the limbs he chopped and, gloved To save his hands, he felt a smallish grief In sawing through to death. He sometimes fell And suffered...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2021 | CH, FR, MA, ST
I Return in Steam Bath August to D.C. and the Divinity Student Walks me through Scrubby Mounds that Would Be Woods Natsu kodachi Hairishi hito no Ato mo nashi In the summer grove I go . . . and not a trace of Him, the man, remains ~Shiki The grove he walked me through...
by phillipw | Jan 3, 2021 | CL, HE, LO, OR, SE, ST
What Matters Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Orgasm by ahermin on DeviantArt He said he loved. (At least that’s what she thought.) So much was going on inside her head That maybe...
by phillipw | Dec 31, 2020 | HE, JE, LO, RO, ST
Walking with Another Man in a Street of Athens Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He bought her earrings, rings in rings in rings Around a sphere, the whole arrangement made Of tempered steel. Well...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2020 | HE, PR, SE, ST
The Trappings of Romance He’d clamped his lips together both to halt His making shouts—and calling out that name. He knew that theirs had been a wild assault Against his nature. It had been his shame. The yellow hair that clung about the head Was stylish in the...
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 23, 2020 | AN, JA, ME, SA, ST, Ta
Fabulous Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The ancient Japanese sword-makers bent Bent, coaxed their steel, more thousands of plies, than Rehearsing swordsmen slashed their blades. ...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2020 | AN, CH, EG, EM, GR, MO, ST
Ritual of Something Too like Vacuum As ignorant as light that streams from rooms Where love has been, we think of you. Alone Now, more like air within the pharaohs’ tombs, We try to fill the dark with more than bone And skin of memory. Your flesh recalled In...
by phillipw | Nov 29, 2020 | CA, PR, ST, SY
Conjurors versus Christians The caves are sacred everywhere. Their dark Prepares us for epiphanies, obscure Pronouncements, and a sibilant remark Wrapped up in mystery. The caves immure The unimagined as on painted walls. The buoyant deer and horses floating...
by phillipw | Nov 27, 2020 | AL, CA, LA, LI, MY, SA, ST
Lost Legends Long Before the Vedas and the Iliad Go far enough in time and all becomes Strict mists and stone. Fire circles heard the tales So long forgotten now that tribal drums Are recent evolutions, compared. Trails Do not exist to take us back to spells And...
by phillipw | Nov 27, 2020 | CH, ST
À La Recherche du Temps Perdu That beauty comes again from time lost, strong As muscles on the shoulder, thigh, in arm, And struggling heart. The beauty comes in long Nights filled with strangled thrust and with love’s harm. That face appears again with fatal hair...
by phillipw | Nov 27, 2020 | AR, GA, HE, Ho, LO, MA, PA, RI, ST, UN, VE
Wedded Love vs. Armpit Stench Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Romances sans Paroles (by Verlaine) has a “consistently high standard … and reflects his troubled emotional state over the rupture...
by phillipw | Nov 14, 2020 | CH, RE, ST
Arms, Shoulders, Legs Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Your dancing causes clouds to form around Your dreams. These clouds are far more solid than The dreams, except the nightmares. Clouds...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2020 | AR, CH, DE, MO, PA, ST, WE
Painting as False Prophet in Acrylic Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The image in the bedroom looks out through The window, artwork gazing out As if a seer. It does not see blue Of...
by phillipw | Oct 27, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, GR, MO, ST
Memorial Maple A piercing red shouts out. The border’s end Is painful to the organs, heart, and mind, And eyes. It calls, “Forgotten is your friend, Forgotten through the year until I blind You with my raucous scarlet autumn leaves. You pass me every day...
by phillipw | Oct 10, 2020 | AU, CH, DE, GR, MO, ST
Forget the Graveyard’s Darkness and that Urn Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Imagining that you are in the sky Above Antarctica or up beyond The Arctic’s ice consoles my heartbeats, high Among excited...
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 8, 2020 | BR, CH, FA, GA, HA, HE, Ho, JO, KE, LO, RO, ST
A Quieter Love Knot like Keats’ and Fanny’s Hair Woven in Cameos A quieter thread of memory wrapped and clung To images, those shins I leaned against As jazz laughed over us, or we’d sung While standing side by side; our shoulders sensed Each other even though they...
by phillipw | Oct 7, 2020 | EL, PO, SS, ST, SW, TR
Translations of Poetry Are Not Like Translations of Saints to Heaven Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Elijah Translators kiss a piece of writing to Another language. Does the piece survive This...
by phillipw | Oct 5, 2020 | BI, HA, IG, LO, ME, MO, PE, ST
Madness of Musical Men Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The work is characterized by the so-called Petrushka chord (consisting of C major and F♯ major triads played together), a bitonality device...
by phillipw | Sep 14, 2020 | AE, BE, CH, ES, LO, MA, ST
Black and White He had black hair in hexing curls, so nth That they caused cursing in the heavens. She Held up a fan, white, silk. These caused a length Of mesmerizing love. These colors, free Of him or her, would register as nought. Because of...
by phillipw | Sep 11, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, GR, LO, MA, ST
Friday Evening Mending through “Heavenly, Heavenly Music” Please tell me, Charles, what duties or what rites You want fulfilled while you are there beyond The living. Would the Sabbath candles’ lights On tables at the Gate enable fond Announcements from the grave or...
by phillipw | Sep 9, 2020 | BL, CH, GR, LO, ST
Love Divine, All Loves Expelling When you were killed by lightning (yes, by God Himself—Herself, perhaps), voltage struck The Shenandoah River where that odd Thing, God’s strange love, took Charles. It ran amok That afternoon beneath the blackened sky, That bleak...
by phillipw | Aug 23, 2020 | FE, HE, ME, SE, ST, WO
How Men Feel about Women Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We feel that they are hostesses. That’s best. That’s how they are at best. They have long hair (At best) but short will do. We like the...
by phillipw | Aug 4, 2020 | AS, MA, MO, OP, ST, SU
Compassionless The radiation that we think about Most often is bright light we see. The moon And sun embrace each other as they shout Their opera duet, their brilliance strewn Across the nights and days of bowing we Have always done. The stars have bit parts...
by phillipw | Jul 29, 2020 | AR, AS, AV, BI, CO, MI, ST
Occult Forces Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Blue bioluminescent gardens guide Credit: Kris Williams To shore some birds which otherwise might die. The currents and the winds make creatures...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2020 | BR, CO, PO, ST, TE, WE
Dagger-like and Sword-like Will Notwithstanding The tears do not comply with lines in skin. They course along outside the ditches, rude Though silent in belligerence. These thin Trails cannot hold the pain when it is skewed Away from tracks that time has dug. ...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | AN, CH, FR, GA, Ho, LO, MA, ST
Antarctic Odds The man I love . . . I carry weight along Horizons for his heart. The burdens are Not heavy and they are. A book with song, And song, and song I clutch to me as far As strides will go. The songs and book stretch out As if through snow,...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | NU, OR, ST, WI
Pigs Would Fly if Their Sties Were Noble Poor Socrates. He thought that if the young Were wrapped in images of beauty, they Would take good in and then could climb each rung Of rightness. Lovelinesses would convey Them up and straight to healthiness of soul. Their...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | AM, AN, AR, MA, MU, PO, ST
Music, Poetry, and Architecture, All from Mathematics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The poet Amphion rebuilt the streets And temples, houses, and the stoa of The ruined Cadmeia. His lyric beats Were...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | HE, MI, OR, PL, ST
Misogyny (μισογυνία) is a Greek Word Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “What would a man not give to engage in conversation with Orpheus?” ~ Plato That marble minded Plato thinks of men, Not women,...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | AN, ST
Farsighted “Things that inadvertantly shape us draw upon structures, forms, legends, myths, which have their origin in ancient Mediterranean cultures.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets The temples stand still, still and broken. They Refuse to be...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | ET, HE, OR, ST
Etymology of Orpheus If “of the river bank” is what the name Of Orpheus might mean,* then that might flow From jet slick River Hades and the shame Of failing to recover, to the glow Of life and sunlight, his lost love. Again It might refer to two of his five deaths...
by phillipw | Jul 4, 2020 | CH, DE, MO, ST
That Other Universe and Sublimated Mercury Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Telepathy with realms beyond, beyond, Beyond, which understand blank secret deaths Made up of see through hieroglyphs and...
by phillipw | Jul 3, 2020 | AL, AR, CH, MO, ST
Bitterer than Blue Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse I sleep with one black perfect curl beneath My pillow. It belongs to love. Below My blond, blond head this curl is like a wreath Of mourning. Blackness almost has a...
by phillipw | Jul 1, 2020 | SA, ST, TH, XE
Centuries and Utterness Separate Them Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse Salonika, where Paul and Xerxes stood, Affords a long Aegean view across To Mount Olympus. One took on his hood Of holiness and one took on a loss Staggering in...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | AL, CH, DE, GR, MO, ST
Bitterer than Blue Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse I sleep with one black perfect curl beneath My pillow. It belongs to love. Below My blond, blond head this curl is like a wreath Of mourning. Blackness almost has a...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | PA, SA, ST, XE
Centuries and Utterness Separate Them Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse Salonika, where Paul and Xerxes stood, Affords a long Aegean view across To Mount Olympus. One took on his hood Of holiness and one took on a loss Staggering in...
by phillipw | May 31, 2020 | IC, ID, SC, ST
That Other Congregation The oldest congregation lingers here, No white haired ladies with a blue rinse in Coiffures among it. Men beside this pier And that repenting middle-aged and balding sin Are not a part of this community. The congregation and the choir are...
by phillipw | May 29, 2020 | AD, CH, FL, GO, HE, MO, PR, RO, SE, ST, Ta
Talleyrand & Gouveneur Morris Crippled Twinning “Your character is such that you destroy Unhappiness much faster than can fate Create its sadnesses,” said Monstesquiou To Adelaïde, who had the lovely trait Of being charming Countess de Flahaut— Which meant that...