by phillipw | Oct 14, 2024 | AN, DY, GE, MA, SC
Gold and Copper Living Gaul Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Here armored, gilt and copper, copper breast And gilt of knee with shin guard shaped in gold, He rests with dots upon his hairless chest....
by phillipw | Oct 7, 2024 | BE, FU, GE, JE, LU, PY, SP
Retort to an Unthinking Funeral Ceremony “Daur ye say Mass in my lug? ~ Jenny Geddes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The priestess said that God loves everything He made. I kept my seat. I did...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2024 | GE, MA
Postpartum Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A sonnet inspired by the painting “Au Bal,” by Berthe Morisot When women see a thing, they see it not As men do. Just as color blindness comes...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2024 | GE, MA, QU, Ta
A Twenty-eight Year Old Baker Boy Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We go to evensong and never think Of Tankerfield, not once. The anthems rise More jasmine-like than incense — not the stink Of...
by phillipw | Feb 5, 2024 | GE, OL, SH, WI
He Looks as Old as Hatred Now Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Alas, poor Yorick” “instruments of darkness tell us truths” ~ Shakespeare, Macbeth He looks as old as hatred now. This scene...
by phillipw | May 1, 2022 | CH, GE, JE, Uncategorized
“The Very Stones Will Cry Out” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Contemplative are agates, geodes too, And also quartz within them. All are filled With meditation colored with the blue Of...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2022 | BR, GE, HE, OK, RU, SE, ST, Ta
Tropical Heat Meets English Poetry Together Taatamata and taut Brooke Spread open her vanilla orchid flower. While it was tropic pink, not white, it took His darker flesh invasion and its power. Its power spread open her Tahiti flesh And spread it, thrust it fleshy,...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2022 | AM, BI, BR, BY, GE, RU
Not Just Fame Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Sherril Shell’s Byronesque reproduction of Brooke’s own devising (the one his friends thought revulsive enough to dub ‘Your...
by phillipw | Oct 27, 2021 | CH, DO, EV, GE, TR
Christian Love and MAGA* These Christians, when they see that church denies Their politics, decide to leave their faith Behind. Their savior in this instance lies To win them, and their Christ becomes a wraith. He changes to a ghost of mercy, love, And Good...
by phillipw | Sep 28, 2021 | GE, Ho, JE, LU
Mazel Toffs It didn’t hurt to be a Gentile on The Silver Screen within the Golden Age. The Jews who ran it walked out on the lawn (The Riv of course). They had to disengage Their cut cock culture from the shiksa one. They played croquet for goodness sake And...
by phillipw | Jul 24, 2021 | GE, MA
The Beekeeper Ponders the Exceptional Hexagon Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Saturn’s North Pole cloud formation The heavy hexagons of rock that shaped In heated rock, the lava as it cooled...
by phillipw | May 4, 2021 | AR, DA, FA, FE, GE, GR, MA, SE, SO, SP, UN
Armpit and Genital Hair on the Masculine Anima Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The armpit hair of spirits is too dark For women. Females do not like to think Of it or get a glance of it as stark As...
by phillipw | Apr 7, 2021 | CH, GE, SH, WI
Shakespeare the Non-dramatist The people in his tragedies I know Are far too rich with metaphors piled on On top of one another, or the flow Of freshet torrents from all winter gone And raging over one rock cliff. Too rich The language for an ordinary man Or woman—or...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2021 | GA, GE, ME, PO, SI, SK
The Lark Ascending “But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening . . . As he to silence nearer soars” “The Lark Ascending” ~ George Meredith He hopes to raise such images, and thoughts, And beauties in his poems as the...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2021 | AE, BE, BU, ES, GE, HI, Ho, IS, JU, TR
Vicars of Esthetics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Triangular like God the flowers are shown Against a boring green of lawn. Arrayed In righteous revelation now full blown Their holiness of...
by phillipw | Jan 12, 2021 | AE, BE, ES, GE, PA, SE
Peony and Fulfillment Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem No man has ever done a thing as lush As this. The stamens and the pistil of The peony rave out. The yellows gush Among the petals like the...
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2020 | BO, BR, CO, DR, EX, GE, IO, JU, VU
Victors in Dream Geography Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We want to conquer dreamers’ landscapes, sweep Through them triumphantly, explore each dream And make it ours. We want to fathom deep...
by phillipw | Nov 2, 2020 | CO, CY, GE, Ho, MU, NA, PO, PR, ZY
Zyklon B The darkness hangs so heavy it might make A sound if struck. The darkness is like black So weighty nightmares might begin to shake If they encountered it. Hearts might attack It. Hearts are only hearts, though. They are made Of blood and...
by phillipw | Oct 9, 2020 | AN, BU, GE, PH, RE
Our Choice of Ancestors What we think, we become. Buddha Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are...
by phillipw | Jul 17, 2020 | AB, FE, FO, GE, PO
I Don’t Know which e-Company Tried to Abort my Poem, but I Won Anyhow (the Complacent Bastards) Today I found a sonnet I’d mislaid. In some brief crisis of a laptop sort. I’d e-mailed lines to me because afraid That in a crash a system glitch would thwart The still...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | AR, GE
The Desert and Dementia “that fragmented legacy of ideas and figures, stories and histories which can be as real to us as our own more immediate past” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets The Oxyrhynchus Papyri were trapped In desert sands for half a million nights And...
by phillipw | Jul 12, 2020 | FE, GE, GR, HI, MI
Orpheus Sings Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “he sings to distract his shipmates from the irresistible lure of the Sirens onto the rocks” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 32 The Sirens...
by phillipw | Jun 30, 2020 | AL, BY, GE, Ho, IS, JO, KE, LO, WA
Crippled Poets Among the earliest of lines to spring And linger utterly till now are long Ones drawn from blinded eyes. The verses sing Like prophets’ spirits which must see. A song Of guts, the gods, and marrow-spills came out From manly depths behind the...
by phillipw | Jun 13, 2020 | GE, RO, SY
Gentle Hermione Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Hermione is gentle and supreme, Is gentleness supreme herself. She spreads Her fragrance like ideals that, floating, stream Above blind Plato’s...
by phillipw | Jun 12, 2020 | BY, GE, GO, HA, Ho, IS, JO, KE, PO, WA
Crippled Poets Among the earliest of lines to spring And linger utterly till now are long Ones drawn from blinded eyes. The verses sing Like prophets’ spirits which must see. A song Of guts, the gods, and marrow-spills came out From manly depths behind the...
by phillipw | Jun 4, 2020 | AR, FR, GE, GH
Smooth Contours are the Best Smooth contours are the best things in the world, The universe in fact. Who wants the straight When you can have the circular, the curled, The bent and curved? That box would be a crate (The Taj Mahal) without its graceful domes. If...
by phillipw | May 31, 2020 | CH, FR, GE, PA, Ta
Talleyrand by François Gérard: a Crippled Sonnet ……………~ commonswikimedia.org He isn’t looking quite askance at us From oils and frame. The gilt surrounding trim, The mouldings, desk, rectangle-rimmed canvas) Are as close as...
by phillipw | May 28, 2020 | BY, CH, DU, GE, LO, Ta
[The following sonnet may offend some readers. Do not read it if you think you may be offended.] Talleyrand and duc di Biron These two engaged in a competition With long dead Baron Byron–the French lords T and Duc de Biron . The ambition Was for them to strike...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | AL, CE, GE, SP, TH
String (Strung Out) Theory Stop! Not so fast, guys! Einstein’s shocked white head Apparently opined not that the rate Of light was swiftest, but nowt could be sped Up quicker than light, could accelerate To be more fleet than it. His crucial thought, That...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | BU, DU, GE, PA, US
Amputee on Inauguration Day: A Sonnet Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Wrapped up in strictest red and white and blue The tight Marine snaps out a straight salute. His brute, square jaw imprisoning, and...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | DO, GE, HE, NI, RI, TR, WA
What Really Matters Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Heroic happenings in legends bear A factuality more sacred than Plain data. The cutting of Samson’s hair Is consequential to his threatened clan...
by phillipw | May 9, 2020 | CH, GE
Geoffrey Chaucer Lived on Vellum When the Dukes Had Died “By 1386 he had written more than half of his poetry, a body of work sufficient to establish him as the greatest English writer before Shakespeare…. He wrote not for hire or on command or, most...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | CO, GE, PE
Big Time Censorship Perhaps you’ve noticed how the statues leave Out any sight of god Apollo’s junk. The artists think that we are too naïve To know the god, presented as a hunk, Had no enraged erection in the scene. They always put a piece of fabric or His...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | CO, DA, GE, LE, MA, OR, PE, VI
The Heart is Never Central Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The heart is never central. It is to The left and far too far above the base. The heart is not positioned for the true. It loves too much the...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | DU, GE, SA
Long after Chopin’s Death George Sand, It Seems, Destroyed 200 Letters Returned to her by Chopin’s Sister, Letters Sand had Sent to Him The problem with bone china is how heart- Breaking in its loveliness it tends to Be, the beauty of the finest fragile part Of...
by phillipw | Apr 2, 2020 | CO, GE, SE
Sacred Barrel, Sacred Target, Sacred Ammo He lines it up. It’s softness has gone hard And it at least knows perfectly its need. It’s like an aching, pulsing, fevered shard That’s full of its intelligence and greed. It knows one thing, and that’s enough. That’s all...
by phillipw | Jan 1, 2020 | GE
Big Boy 成吉思汗 We don’t consider Genghis Khan, except In Ulaanbaatar. Mongols carved his form In limestone on a hillside. They have swept Aside his murders( from his raging storm Across the continent). Instead they make A sentimental image of...
by phillipw | Sep 3, 2019 | AE, AN, BE, ES, GE, GR
Up Close and Pulchritude Hercules Musei Capitolini, Wikipedia The way we view ourselves as humans lies In how we see our past. Imagine then An ancient statue of a man. His eyes Are white, white,...
by phillipw | Jul 2, 2019 | GE
A Cross Section of Ancient Rock as Atomic Oracle The prophecy is mute, as all the best Predictions ought to be. It’s not until Fulfilment comes and we have acquiesced To its finality that we can drill Its import. Pressed gray marble ruined by Black manganese was...