by phillipw | Apr 10, 2021 | FE, MA, RO
Romanticism The truth is that romance is not romantic In being Polynesian, scented with Chanel, Hermès, Yves . . . not necromantic, Not in the least unusual. That myth That it’s romantic is stupendous in Its chutzpah. What romantic really is Is more a...
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 9, 2021 | EG, GO, LO, RO, SE
Golden Tongue Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Ancient mummies with golden tongues unearthed in Egypt – BBC News If I were buried with a tongue of gold, Would I still be a poet, or,...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2021 | Uncategorized
Present and Past When walking through the white rows of the blooms Behind my bungalow, I see the sgùrr [1] Across the Great Rift Valley. In my rooms I have my huddled books. No smell of myrrh Is brought to breathing from those pages, yet They resurrect the...
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 | Apr 6, 2021 | SE, SH
Far Below in Salt Sea Depths Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Why shells that sound of seas are pink inside So often is a mystery. Why not A Caribbean blue? And why not dyed With whitest foam,...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2021 | CA, CH, GR, Ho, ME, TO
Not as Certain as Dim Marble in the Nave We pause beside those tombs, the ones with white Carved marble hands in praying firmness there On chest and breast. They look to be contrite And will be ever so. The lordly prayer Is undermined since also there beside Him is...
by phillipw | Apr 4, 2021 | BU, CH, IM, RE, RO
He Wore his Royal Robes to Lead Out in Matins and Vespers Some lines of verse by Robert King of France Sing, simply pious, from one thousand years Gone by. We analyze them, though, askance Because his holiness had fatal fears Like flaming coals inside it. He was so...
