by phillipw | Dec 16, 2019 | RI, VE
A Very Bulldog Welcome The day Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine arrived Together, London was in lovely light. At least it should have been. The sun, deprived Of autumn glory, cringed from urban blight. The coal-fire chimneys’ vileness forced Verlaine To write,...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | TR
London against Eternity A little tree beside the motorway Holds out a few slight branches to the light. Five hundred tiny blossoms have their say. They speak against London, with petals, white, But it looms high on their horizon. Steel And glassy skyscrapers blot...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | BA, DE
Rimbaud Wrote, “We are in the months of love” No. Poets are the mouths of love. That kid Was wrong from early on. He sent that line To Théodore, who early saw the skid This lice-filled fiend would slide down. Evil swine, Archangel eyed, his lips snagged only one...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | AR, BA, DE, RI
The Months of Love On May 24, 1870, Rimbaud wrote a letter from Charleville to Théodore de Banville, leader of a group of poets in Paris. Maybe each intense blueness is eternal, even if only for the season of love. “Dear Master, We are in the months of love And...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | CH, ST
Stranger and Stranger …… How intricate your beauty is, how sad My sturdy worship. Curiously they fit. Your loveliness, tinged by women you’ve had, Is laced with curling shapes. There’s not one bit Of you that isn’t curled,...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | BY, RI
Byron and the Boyfriend He Never Got to Meet A man’s poetic quality depends On his capacity for love, or so Said Rimbaud. More like lust. His lovers, friends And innocent bystanders saw the glow Of his to devotion to his verse. His heart? . . . No...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | BR, UG
Revolting The redhead, ugly, and with glasses tries, However. Little earrings mean at least A bit of vanity. To exercise Some hope, though, isn’t wrong. Meager brows creased Above her specs have not been penciled in; No cheating try to titillate,...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2019 | MA
Shades of Masculinity A shadow is a young man who’s exposed To certain types of light. These vary. Some Are megawatt demands that are composed By all the males around, his manly scrum. No wonder he’s diminished in this crowd. The light of women also takes its...
