by phillipw | Dec 30, 2019 | LI
Stone Town Markers, Markets Bronze Livingstone is specked with pigeon shit And thousands walk across his abbey tomb His London grave, tourists, heedless of it. A few might think of liberty’s slow bloom In Africa where slavery died its long And lingering death. They...
by phillipw | Dec 30, 2019 | AE, BE, TR
Why Poems are Doomed to Fail Exactly why are poems doomed to fail? What guarantees the stillbirth of their hopes? Because the ones with breasts in them are pale As holograms beside those truthful slopes, The beauty that an ogee would capture, If only it could? Might...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | JA
The Synthesizer in Rare Books and Music in the British Library The sterness of his haircut and his face, Especially the cruelty in the height Of manly cheekbone, the studious place (Rare Books and Music Room, a lamp with light So harshly aimed at...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | FR
Baked Alaska Our friendship is a strange confection, as Substantial, insubstantial as the best Things always are. Its fragile surface has A lightness to it; a simple bride, dressed In satin, springs to mind (easily torn), And then beneath that shiny crust,...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | DE
Written during Choral Evensong, St. George’s Chapel, in the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Europe. The Dead Lie Stretched Out .. The dead lie stretched out under stony lids, Some marble, others basalt, all set, carved To keep these bodies trapped. Each...
by phillipw | Dec 29, 2019 | PH
Why Have Words? Why have words when what we need to say can Be spoken by a groan? The crucial things Are best expressed by moans. Let’s pass a ban On verbs and nouns. It’s wailing that has wings. The ululation of an agony Is eerier than threnodies with...
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...
