by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | CA
Cages for Oddities of the Animal World The time will come someday because of genes, And all that stuff, when whites will be in zoos. Pale skins will be presented in droll scenes And normal people then will form up queues To point and giggle, laugh, and shake their...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | AN, PO
Aurora Actuality “We can confirm almost nothing about Homer and Hesiod, yet we have no problem, even when we should, believing in them.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 22 Who doubts that Homer, Hesiod, the old And oldest poets ever lived? Why should...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | AN, PO
No Room for Unholiness not Cleansed “ ‘What would a man not give,’declares Plato in the Apology, ‘to engage in conversation with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?’ Can we do something of the sort? If not to engage in conversation, then at least to glimpse...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | CI, Ho
Plato Would Have Hated Movies “the stones would immediately cry out” ~ Luke 19:40 No sound of landing penetrates the rocks. The total lack of atmosphere here on This moon forbids the din. There must be shocks While lander touches down, like when long gone...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | GO
Before We Brought Them Down Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ~ Exodus 20:4 When gods become mere figures, they are not Gods anymore. They slip to being oil On canvas, words on pages, poems caught In scrolls and codexes. Gods used to roil Around in...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | DE, DI, PE
Coco Chanel Just Didn’t Get It, Did She? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The peonies grow larger as they move Towards death. They grow as blowsy as a whore Dressed up for some man’s fantasy. They...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | NI, TR
Buddhas Better than Methuselah If you become a buddha, would you know It? Would you suddenly break through the world To calm sublimity, escape the flow Of suffering and time that long has swirled Around your body and your soul and in Them? If you made this leap, would...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | IM, MA, TR
Himmortality “In 1999, the futurist Ray Kurzwell published a book entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines. He looked forward to a future in which the ‘human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems . . . and...
