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 | Feb 5, 2024 | GE, OL, SH, WI
He Looks as Old as Hatred Now Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Alas, poor Yorick” “instruments of darkness tell us truths” ~ Shakespeare, Macbeth He looks as old as hatred now. This scene...
by phillipw | Jan 2, 2024 | EM, SE, WI
Exponential Nuance Z = Z2 + C When meaning’s sense transforms from words like notes Do when they turn to melody with chords, The harmonies with rhyming rhythms, throats And instruments all blending widely towards That certainty which saints and...
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 | Aug 6, 2023 | BL, PE, PH, SO, WI
Bliss’s Obsidian Wand Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Maleness is magic, the potent principle of universal creativity.” ~ Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae, 40 A warlock holds his...
by phillipw | May 31, 2023 | AI, DO, GR, LO, OS, WI
Painting as Sacred Seduction Lord Alfred Douglas would have loved to sit For Basil Howard. Even more this lord Would certainly have forced his Wilde to quit The field of fever known as love and board The field of bankrupt slavery to pay The painter for the...
by phillipw | May 29, 2023 | AL, BO, DO, LO, OS, WI
BruteBitchBastard Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “like murdered singing birds” Lord Alfred turned to singing something worse Than that monstrosity, that attic room Abomination. He became...
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 | Dec 29, 2022 | CE, DE, WI
Wind Blowing Stars, Black Knapweed and Tormentil Among Tombstones “For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” ~ King James Version (KJV) Psalm 103:16 The universe is like a field of flowers That used to be a...
by phillipw | Dec 16, 2022 | FO, Uncategorized, WI
“Tarry,” is Spring’s Command Yet if we grieve, the spring that blossoms will Not come as wishes quick or slow will leap. The grief of spring will hasten just the spill Of cherry blossoms. Spring will only creep Back when its universe returns again. Our grieving...
by phillipw | Aug 22, 2022 | AU, FA, WI
Autumn Wind The autumn wind has never found its shapes. October sends it through the yellow leaves, The orange ones and the red ones. Wind escapes, Not ceding any clue. Each leaf receives A hint about the contours of the wind But does not...
by phillipw | Dec 6, 2021 | AL, AR, GL, HA, IN, QU, WI
Magnanimity: Mourning Gladstone Finally Offers a Peerage to Tennyson and Finally the Mourning Poet Accepts It Arthur Henry Hallam William Ewart Gladstone Alfred, Lord Tennyson Forget the jealousy between two men in love. Forget what beardless envies that in youth...
by phillipw | Oct 20, 2021 | BR, GA, RU, WI, YE, ZE
“Almost Ludicrously Beautiful” “His looks were stunning – it is the only appropriate adjective.” ~ Leonard Woolf “the handsomest young man in England” ~ W. B.Yeats “He [Ganymede] was regarded as the most beautiful human on earth, male or female.” ~...
by phillipw | Aug 10, 2021 | CO, FO, FR, WI
Advice for Living Do life the way a worker honeybee Approaches living, but without the fault Of filling life without wild liberty. Stretch up. Attend to life as if pole vault Maneuvers at their height were done without The flexing strength that...
by phillipw | Aug 5, 2021 | TI, WH, WI
Singing Travels Vast upon Past Waters ~ for Wilma Whidden Sisson, soprano Grandiloquent the blossoms by her lawn Around the back werehidden from the eyes Of neighbors, Petals have a brilliant brawn Of redness, orange of a wide surprise, Hibiscus of a cream-like...
by phillipw | Jun 17, 2021 | AM, BI, BL, WI
Black and White Lambs Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Black And White Lambs by Pat Scrap on Pixabay If I were just a little lamb in spring, I think that I would want to be both...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2021 | CH, FI, GA, OW, WI, WO
Boy Soldiers, not Toy Soldiers Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Wilfred Owen He’s cuter than the photo that they show So often, more a smiling kid and not A solemn soldier or a poet, no...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2021 | WI
The Expression on the Face of Mankind The answers come, the ones we are not asked, Or not in wisdom, maybe in our heart Of mystic hearts, but not in books. Those tasked With answering them watch intellect depart When they are prudent. Wisdom in the waves Which...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2021 | BI, HU, OS, PH, Uncategorized, WH, WI
Hyperthymesia, , William Louis Hunter V, SRA Reading Lab, and Oscar Wilde Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Bill is in the white cardigan. I’m in the dark sweater in the center. My boyhood...
by phillipw | Apr 7, 2021 | CH, GE, SH, WI
Shakespeare the Non-dramatist The people in his tragedies I know Are far too rich with metaphors piled on On top of one another, or the flow Of freshet torrents from all winter gone And raging over one rock cliff. Too rich The language for an ordinary man Or woman—or...
by phillipw | Feb 28, 2021 | NE, WI
The Wisest Words were Written Long after They Were Spoken The wisest words are of the ages long Ago, so long that many people now Are not acquainted with their force. A gong Is struck but sounds more like an echo. Thou And thee are how most think of them, at best. A...
by phillipw | Feb 23, 2021 | DE, ET, SP, SY, TY, WA, WI
Wind and Water Cleave and Cleave Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem .. We know that wind is spirit life. The wind Is God in symbol, and the angels, too, And demons, angels with God’s demons twinned....
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2021 | BU, GI, SA, WI
The Ancient Evergreen Did Not Become a Buddha Hotoke to mo Narade uka uka Oi no matsu. The ancient pine-tree Not yet being wise Buddha Is idly dreaming. ~Issa An ancient redwood lived its slowest youth So long ago that nothing else recalls It. Redwood mindlessness...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2020 | AN, FE, HE, JO, LA, PA, PR, TH, WH, WI, WO
Presence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The past is never past, is more than ghost Or Undead creature. Passed away the past Is not. It lives within. Its whispered boast Inhabits mental...
by phillipw | Oct 4, 2020 | CO, DA, EM, GR, OS, PU, WI
Who Cares about Mere Language? “Every word was once a poem.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in “The Poet.” Greek graffitos put the letter V and the letter M on walls during Greece’s occupation by Nazis. V = Vinceremo (we will win). M = Mussolini Merde. Any graffitos...
by phillipw | Sep 14, 2020 | AN, BR, CH, DA, DI, PI, RO, WI, WO
All’s Right with the World Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Nature … in the very act of labouring as a machine is also sleeping as a picture.” Canon J. B. Mozely, University Lectures, sermon on...
by phillipw | Sep 13, 2020 | BR, JA, JO, MO, PO, TH, WI, WO
Thoreau in His Worst Freudian Nightmares Could Not Have Imagined Pollock or de Kooning Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Thoreau says nature does the better part Of work oak carpenters get credit for,...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | AN, DO, ED, FA, PA, WA, WI
Edward Wilson’s Uncompromising Painting in the Face of Doom … It is as if the realm of ghosts and shades Were painted in a watercolour of Pale blues and soft frost blacks, or like charades Performed behind auroras from above Antarctic twilights. ...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | PH, PL, PO, SO, WI
What We Drink Who wants thick wisdom first in poems? It Is ours for chewing in the pleasures of The scrolls of Plato, thinkers who permit The thought that pleasure proves the point of love, And stern philosophers with guts to kill All weakness, straight. The...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | CO, GO, JA, ME, OD, PE, SA, SO, WI
The Big Exceptions The women move in caged in places both In life and plays. In poetry they are Curtailed to Sappho and Corinna. Troth Constricts Penelope. It hems. No spar To take her seas away, she sits at loom, Is trapped at night unpicking her trapped work,...
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 11, 2020 | DE, LO, WI
Love that is Love “Then his folly is Pure madness, but his wisdom a philosopher’s” From the Phaedrus of Alexis, In Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae A giant book about gastronomy And wisdom—if such stuff can be combined— Pretends to touch on...
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 26, 2020 | CH, HU, MA, MU, PA, SC, SH, WI
With a Pretty Ding, Dong, Bell “This has a very pretty madrigalian ‘Ding, dong, bell’ ending.” ~ Emily Daymond, 77 At 15 Hubert tried his hand at straight Poetic madrigal, a Shakespeare song, In “Tell Me, Where is Fancy Bred?” The gate Of fancy is our eyes and where...
by phillipw | May 26, 2020 | CH, HU, LO, RO, SE, SH, ST, TW, WI
Parts Song “Take, oh Take Those Lips Away” “(sung at the Eton College Concert)” ~ Emily Daymond Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes: the breake of day, Lights that do mislead the Morn; But my kisses bring...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | AL, CH, EL, KI, PH, PR, WI
Simian Wound to Greece “The new Greek king, Alexander, … was out walking his wolfhound, Fritz … and the dog was attacked by a tame Spanish monkey. While trying to release the monkey from Fritz’s teeth, the king was attacked by its mate and severely bitten...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | BA, PH, PR, WH, WI
The Little Prince Who Grew Like me he grew up slim and sturdy, blond As Greece or Florida in sun. He crawled And stood up. Women around us were fond Of gold smiles, Philip and Phillip. They mauled Us with their cuddling kisses. We were fine, Right through it all,...
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | BL, EN, GR, PE, PO, SC, SH, TE, WI
Poets Are the Legislators of the Scientific World In 2011 I was reading a biography of John Keats. In the introduction Lord Byron is quoted as saying that Keats "belonged to that second-hand school of poetry" because he got his inspiration from...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | AN, MU, RE, SA, WI
A Tenor in the Choir His face is like a student I once taught; Not just the pupil’s eyes, the brightness, too, And humor in the face, with freckles fraught, A gratifying galaxy, a slew Of them across his cheeks, his brow, his nose. It seems as if each stipple...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, OS, RI, WI
Each Autre Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Four days apart their births and just a few Miles separating them, these two young men, Though geniuses, were destined not to screw Each other. ...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AR, OS, PA, RI, VE, WI
A Found Sonnet: Blue and Black Gemstones Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “I cannot accept this death. It’s been some Years now since we’ve seen each other. Rimbaud, Though (Arthur’s art and face),...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AL, AN, BO, CO, DO, GI, OS, PE, RO, WI
The Ultimate Chamber of Silent Adoration Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “When Robbie Ross died, […] he triumphed over both Bosie and Constance, by having his ashes interred in Oscar’s tomb.” ~...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | CH, CR, NA, WI
Weakness Again and Again The English chopped the neck of Charles One, And next they had a king not called a king, The Lord Protector. Soon they called the son Of Lopped Off Head to bring back royal bling Like orb and crown. He failed to make an heir, Producing...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | LO, VI, WI
Highest Inheritance The losers who are punished by their loss And pain are purer than the victors who Get glory. Christ upon his aching cross Is like his cousin John. Their lives, askew Across imperial realities, Are massacred. The Pharisees’ and scribes’,...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | AC, KI, SC, SH, WI
Too Good to be Academically True “For several decades, some theorists have suggested that William Shakespeare placed his mark on the translated text of Psalm 46 that appears in the King James Bible, although many scholars view this as unlikely, stating that the...
by phillipw | May 14, 2020 | GR, MI, OC, TH, WI
The Second Great Discombobulation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Put on your robes. Ascension comes, is nigh. The final time of Judgment’s mighty power Is looming. Turn your eyes towards the sky....
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | CH, EN, PO, WI, WO
Sweetness on the Desert Air Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you retreated to provincial Kent, Were banished there from London’s buzz to rot Among the hops and bees where things are meant To be...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | BO, DR, JO, LA, PA, PH, WE, WH, WI
Recurring, Not Forgotten Florida Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The childhood cosmos that returns in dreams Is full of butter suns, smooth, yellow, bright. The light is not like melting candy creams...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | AU, BE, CA, DE, DO, ED, FA, RO, WI
A Seal Upon my Heart Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem My lingering rose, the lightish purple one, Has failed to open. It is still a bud In late November. Though the autumn sun Indulges it, the rose will...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | FR, LO, MA, WI
An Ancient Greek Trinity In Athens Love was placed in honor by Athena. There beside chaste wisdom, love Was set up on a plinth. The Greeks placed high In their gymnasia that god above Their bodies practicing for ideal power. Accompanying love there in that place Were...
by phillipw | Feb 18, 2020 | CA, WH, WI
Aunt Wilma’s Voice Aunt Wilma’s voice had wings within it. They Were all the species she had known on Cape Canaveral—and others. The array Included hummingbirds, their whirring shape, The shimmer of the nightingale and lark. In church her...
by phillipw | Feb 13, 2020 | WI
Paternal Wisdom “the Ionian sea is haunted by an error of love” ~ Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels A father leads his son, informs him of The purpose of a storm and clearer skies, And teaches what to hate and harshly love As in revenge the color of the eyes Of...
by phillipw | Jan 26, 2020 | RI, WI
[Arthur Rimbaud and Oscar Wilde were born four days apart from each other. They both died and are buried in France. Wilde arrived as a student at Oxford at the same time that Rimbaud was abandoning poetry and teaching French in the large house of his employer in...
by phillipw | Jan 8, 2020 | WI
Intact If you should go before I do, I want One thing. I want you quietly fulfilled With knowledge that I loved. No need to haunt Yourself with this devotion: it was spilled For life, for life. Don’t take conviction to That petty kingdom of your...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | DR, TE, WI
Becoming: Waking Up in the Thwarted Rêve …………………. …………..See the gif at https://imgur.com/gallery/c0yTUmw When Tennessee became my age, his brain Began to dream in color. Up till then The...
by phillipw | Dec 27, 2019 | FR, WI
Oh, Fill my Veins with Sap of Curs! …..“and filleth with the blood of weeds” Oh, fill my veins with sap of curs! Distend My arteries with basest urges. Bloat My heart with commonest of strengths and send From it the humble lusts of ram and goat, Those fed on...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2019 | SA, WI
The Savagery of Human Hearts The savagery of human hearts is best When violence is banned. The pressure swells As in an autoclave when love is pressed. A pressure cooker squeezes charging cells Erupting from the vessels in our chests. Erythrocytes and leukocytes,...
by phillipw | Nov 22, 2019 | AU, WI
Hills I like that hills are taught by autumn how To mean and learn from leaves what orange warns. Hills take their definition from fall’s now And from its sharpened hoariness of horns. I like how hills are taught by castles, walls And forts what...
by phillipw | Oct 21, 2019 | WH, WI, WO
Father’s Voice I can’t remember what my father said Except when he was storytelling, or Declaiming poetry, or when his head Was full of politics or God. His store Of beauty came in tales, or ringing lines Of loveliness and joy, and plots he spun, And...
by phillipw | Oct 14, 2019 | VE, WI
“The Most Beautiful Life in History” (Oscar Wilde on the life of Paul Verlaine) Wilde’s entertaining Magdalen French did not Amuse Verlaine. The fireworks of those words Were sparkling like champagne but they meant squat To Paul—or were as...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2019 | LO, RI, VE, WI
Repentance = Looking Backward You know how funny that it was in years Gone by when films on reels could be re-run Backwards? An actress’s glycerine tears Could crawl back up into her eyes. What fun! Ha Ha, funny, yes. And yet . . . sometimes life Runs backwards,...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2019 | LO, WI
I Took Aunt Wilma to Lorena’s Grave I took Aunt Wilma to Lorena’s grave, But first we’d gone to Walmart where she chose A dark gardenia. I became her slave. I paid the money, helped her to dispose Her fragile body in the Chevrolet, And drove her to...
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...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2019 | RI, WI
[Arthur Rimbaud and Oscar Wilde were born four days apart from each other. They both died and are buried in France. Wilde arrived as a student at Oxford at the same time that Rimbaud was abandoning poetry and teaching French in the large house of his employer in...
by phillipw | Jul 3, 2019 | WI
A Tabernacle Open The green begins to rise through richness of The sunrise-reddish brown across the fields In Windsor. Sparkling gems peak up above The corduroy earth. This vista yields A beauty rivalling, surpassing Crown Jewels glistening. Pheasants stand as...