by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | AB
An Extreme Diet I eat from saucers since I live alone. Life’s portions do not need a dinner plate When love is gone. God gives a stone And not a loaf, unless the bread has hate As butter—or, at best, indifference. Small Cups made to fit a doll’s house...
by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
Holy Orders I have a cool stone convent set inside My mind. The only nun is me. I move From cell to cell like flotsam on a tide Whenever inspiration flows. I prove The worth of this sensation or that thought By testing it with images and lines. The...
by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | JO, KE
The Entry into the City of English Poets We see him heated, agitated, full Of passion as a poem fills a page, As stern as Christ with money changers; skull Not visible but there as if a rage Resents the hair and flesh and skin And mouth, the opening between the bones,...
by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | LO, RO
A Toxic Spirit like HIV in Me An incubus or succubus is in My chest—too hard to tell if it is male Or female. It injects a mix of sin And sexuality. My heart is frail With stupid love and so it takes the dose As if it were prescribed for endless joy. That spirit...
by phillipw | Feb 7, 2020 | RH
Religious Rhapsody A vision in themselves, these flowers flood In sweeps across each branch, so perfect in Their swell of loveliness a fragrant thud Of joy fills chest and lungs. An Angevine Dark purple velvet never could contend With petals deeper than a...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2020 | KE
Misogyny and Class Warfare We took Keats’ life to be a taller ship Of Poetry, Romance, and High Ideals, But now we know through Motion’s scholarship Keats danced to rather boorish, common reels, Not only rules for minuets and verse. He hated women when he...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2020 | HE, ME, PH, WH
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose Today I chew the peanut butter, sweet Grape jelly, white bread sandwich which she made For me those sixty years ago. I eat Not just a memory refusing to fade But actually the groundnut spread and dark Fruit layer in between the...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2020 | CH, LO, RO, ST
Recovery Road Forget the sense of melting when your chest Felt waterfalls of wonder from your soul, When tides came as a wave, a glistening crest Which washed your heart and left it kneeling, whole. Leave memories of warmth behind, the shape Which made...
