Classic Roman Marble Walls are Not Poetry. Monet Water Lilies Framed upon Them Are Not Poetry. Poetry is Made to Spill. Soul is Never Still.
and
Art May Be Degraded But Is Not Defeated or Transient: paired sonnets
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
A poem is the texture of a mood
A god might have, more feeling than a thought
Yet only for a moment. He might brood
Upon emotion briefly as uncaught
Outside eternity. If thinking comes,
Ideas must yield their right of way to blinks,
More truancy than teacher, turn to crumbs,
Be swept away by visions. Anguish blinks
Away the realm of intellect when glyphs
Appear in high relief. A lady still
Inside a picture frame is filled with ifs
Unanswered. Poetry produces chill.
Frisson will pass unlike a doctrine sent
From sorrow. Poetry is soul’s lament.
~ Phillip Whidden
Art May Be Degraded But Is Not Defeated or Transient
A chastity of marble on the walls
Is background to the wavers and the frills
Of water lily paint. The stone recalls
No hint of ancient painted color thrills.
Our stripped-down notion of how ancient Greek
And Roman sculptures should appear, each blank
Of lurid colors missing from antique
