by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | HE, WH
Strokes My mother is an oval brooch now. She Is carved from colors like those pralines made Of deep brown sugar and pecans. We see Her head, the blonder layer in the shade Of beeswax in the silhouette above The darker ground behind her profile...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | GR, HE
[I suggest you read the title and then skip the bible verses and read just the sonnet below them. Then read the bible verses and re-read the poem.] Wound The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood ~ Joel 2:31...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | JO, KE, SE
The Final Leg of John Keats’ Journey to Death [John Keats, in case you didn’t know already, died of TB when he was very young. In a desperate attempt to save his life, his friends subscribed money to send him to live in Italy. This ploy failed and he died...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | GO
Hush Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. ~ Psalm 84:3 The swallow and the sparrow do not sing Beside...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | LO, RI, RO, VE
Pleasure, Prussian Pain: Verlaine Remembers Arthur’s Eyes Your eyes went blue in through my heart, straight through The blue that was my heart and bored through night, Straight through my night and out into a new Blue dawn, a morn so full of blue and might That...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | LO, RI, RO, VE
Verlaine Conducts the Tribunal: Rimbaud’s Eyes I try to fathom why he has that haze In fluorite eyes. No one can tell. I’ve asked His friends about that gaze. They all go blank. Not one of them when tasked To give interpretation of his black And...
by phillipw | Feb 14, 2020 | AU, FA
Royal Fields and Horizon, Windsor: Crown, Orb and Swaying Sceptre The gentle foliage arc the hill provides Because of autumn limbs held up to touch The blue curved sky, this two-greened arch, divides The earth from heaven and then joins up much Besides. The dual bow...
by phillipw | Feb 14, 2020 | RI, VE
Lucien Viotti, Madame Mathilde Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud A wife cannot compete with someone who Has rhymed himself with vacuum. The blank A dead friend leaves behind is perfect blue. The charms a mindless wife can offer rank More like a lukewarm brown contrasted...
