by phillipw | May 5, 2024 | KI, NI
NØught Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Kierkegaard As faintly as the cosmos feels our breath, It feels our hearts much less, that’s if it reads At all their beats. Significance Macbeth, As hardened in...
by phillipw | Aug 31, 2021 | HE, KI, MA
“The Declaration of Independence” and “Resistance to Civil Government” Bring Peace and War The mildness of a Ghandi turns to thrust Of violence. The little spinning wheel Becomes a maelstrom. Prejudices combust The whole subcontinent. That...
by phillipw | Jul 11, 2021 | BL, BU, GO, GR, IO, KI, KY
Born from the Genitals of Uranus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The eyes of Aphrodite are more blue, As blue as depths off Kythira, perhaps As pale as blue waves mariners see through Before they find...
by phillipw | Jan 14, 2021 | AE, KI, LE, ME, MO
Meager Medieval Males and Meager Modern Males Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We wonder if they honestly deceived Themselves with legends told as histories. Were decorated prose and rhyme believed As...
by phillipw | Jan 6, 2021 | KI, MA, SE, SI
Hard as an Anvil and a Stone …. “bygge” ~ Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Stuck in, pulled out, stuck in, pulled out, again Again, again, again, the weapon he had found That only he could wield, the best of men, The one to do it, stout young Arthur crowned...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2020 | AL, AN, CH, FE, KI, MU
The Cambridge Christmas Choir Trinity The beauties vary. One young man whose throat Appears to have no voice box sings high Inside the chapel. Melodies devote Themselves from him like angels in the sky Above sopranos and the trebles. He Turns into miracles the...
by phillipw | Nov 9, 2020 | DE, KI, PA, SE, UN
Hissing “skin redolent with unspoken kisses” ~ Jaime Mathis, It Rises and Falls “Never let a fool kiss you and never let a kiss fool you.” A kiss, if spoken or unspoken, smells Of nothing. Kisses touching skin or lips, Those kisses licking...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | AL, CH, EL, KI, PH, PR, WI
Simian Wound to Greece “The new Greek king, Alexander, … was out walking his wolfhound, Fritz … and the dog was attacked by a tame Spanish monkey. While trying to release the monkey from Fritz’s teeth, the king was attacked by its mate and severely bitten...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | AL, KI, PH, PR
More than Just Blue Eyes His family was as full of grief as most Extended ones, blue of flowers more Like purple though. While on the Baltic coast With Alexandra sporting on the shore Perhaps he temporarily forgot Along with her King Alexander’s death. They played in...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | BE, BI, CA, KI
Buso No miracles are needed when kittens Abound. Their stripes and spots and blotches say Enough. Mine has all of these and mittens Of white as pure as Baby Jesu’s soul away On ox’s straw, as white as light from eyes Of ass and angels looking lost in...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | BU, CA, KI
The Eye Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The lines of kitten loveliness themselves Are beautiful as she is, almost, there, But not. A rapt, assessing gaze that delves The vision sleeping on the...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | BU, CA, KI
Ocean Fish Reverie Two cats are sleeping near me, one stretched long Across the velvet easy chair. Her nose Lies pressing pinkly there. A lilting song Of tiny snoring, muffled by the pose, Is nearly all absorbed in plush gold pile— A fitting, soft recipient...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | CA, DO, FE, KI
That Always Love Modern poetry ...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | AC, KI, SC, SH, WI
Too Good to be Academically True “For several decades, some theorists have suggested that William Shakespeare placed his mark on the translated text of Psalm 46 that appears in the King James Bible, although many scholars view this as unlikely, stating that the...
by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | BI, KI
The Greatest of These Authoritative, bevelled, and complete The language of the King James Bible speaks. It knows, conflation at its height, replete With meaning and beyond, displays antiques Behind pure glass, antiques of beauty like Clean gilded china, glazed...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | BI, KI, MO, MU
What Understanding Does: a Pair of Sonnets Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Son of man, can these bones live?” ~ Ezekiel 37:3 When faith is in retreat, then scripture reads More beautifully,...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | AN, BE, DA, IN, KI, UZ
God Hardened the Heart of Pharaoh Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The goodness of their God in which He hid The death of men awaits believers. They Will still believe. Their doubt has truly slid To...
by phillipw | Apr 24, 2020 | KI
The Vile and the Supreme Brutality meets decency and then What happens? Hardness softens, or it cracks A little. Craquelure might happen when The decency is struck. Unless an axe Completely shatters bright compassion, right Can still survive, strong, beautiful,...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | CA, CH, KI
Animalerie Vilmorin, 8 quai de la Megisserie, Paris The kitten, gray and striped with black, sat on Her haunches as she kneaded in the fur Of sister’s side. The sister gave a yawn And tried to suckle. If there was a purr We couldn’t hear it through the glass. The cage...
by phillipw | Mar 30, 2020 | HI, KI
Art Critics Speak As if we might be able to forget What Freud has foisted on us, artist Hirst Thrusts serpents and his monsters full of threat Up front and most are thick with penis thirst As anything that mental patients might Purvey. The female...
by phillipw | Mar 30, 2020 | HI, KI
Depths and Shallows The Hirst exhibits were, he claims, sunk down Beneath the Indian Ocean’s waves. Once deep In waters their shallowness makes us frown. He left them there to dream of corals, sleep Among the lichens of the seas, and grow Worm casts. At least...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2020 | CA, KI
Black and White Uncompromisingly in Every Attitude For Prospero the world is black and white. It’s true he’s got green eyes—though, yes, pink nose And paw pads—and he wears fluorescent bright Green lights to warn birds that his stalking pose Looms close to...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2020 | KI, MU
King’s Dreary The sky lies blue on top of still canals In Cambridge. Perpendicular, the thrust Of King’s attempts to leave the drear locales And gravity behind. The sound of trust Arises from the boys’ voices in The soaring chapel...
by phillipw | Mar 3, 2020 | KI, LO, RO, SE
Abundance The gentleness of lips contemplating A kiss, or speaking, calls up fullness through The heart or thought. The lips give due weighting To passion in the chest, in senses true To honesty, or mysteries unknown But felt. The softness of the mouth...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | JO, KE, KI
March 1819 John strolls alone along spring’s English streets. He sees a kitten being tortured by A boy, a butcher’s boy, and fights and beats Him, thrashes him. Just over five feet high, John intervenes when others might have left The beef-slab bully to...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | CA, KI
The Spiritual Meaning of Kittenhood She plays with plastic bags until she knocks Them down from off the easy chairs, and spills The contents, loudly, clattering (the box That held the Christmas cookies) and she thrills To see the spreading chaos. “This is what Life’s...
by phillipw | Jan 31, 2020 | BU, CA, KI
The New Purrusalem My kitten steps across my flooring tiles And even though they are the blandest bland, A space of beige like wedding chapel aisles, Tiles turn transparent gold, become the strand Of Heaven leading to the throne of Him Who made her beauty with a...
by phillipw | Dec 18, 2019 | KI
The Memory of Your Mouth The memory of your mouth still makes a wound Where lips now hollow once were crushed with lust. Your tongue and teeth that savaged like a hound Have left a scar-like gap and taste of rust Where feral kisses set their mark and had Their...
by phillipw | Dec 16, 2019 | CA, KI
Kipper He masters life by learning how to fall. From heights he lands with four white feet just right. When drowsy all he does is form a ball Of stripes —and falls into a furry night Made up of twitch and sleep. And if from grace He falls...
by phillipw | Dec 8, 2019 | FR, KI, LO
On the Occasion of Edward II’s 700th Birthday—April 25,1984 On burning blue spring mornings such as this One, he would best have found his satisfactions In passionless ditch-digging with the bliss Of sun on neck and back,or, in actions Of sweat while making...
by phillipw | Nov 17, 2019 | KI, MI
Lightest Dusky Orange, Pearly Grey, and Softest White; Her He Should Have Worshiped Poor little darling Minon got ahead In life by starting from behind. They dumped Her in the basement. She hunted bread To keep from death. From that bad start she jumped To...
by phillipw | Nov 6, 2019 | AD, CH, CL, GI, HE, KI, TE
….. Pubescent Vector Tom’s shoulders—knots of boyishness—were tied By Jahweh when in Baden-Powell mood But move in that white shirt where they must hide (Required by dress-code rule, to make Tom good), So they remain as veiled, as chaste, and...
by phillipw | Aug 13, 2019 | GA, GL, KI, PA
Alone and Unsupported Within our little lifetimes heroes rose More great than Heracles, and greater than Achilles’ myth. John Glenn and Yuri froze Out Jason in his little Argo. Man Leapt up beyond the earth, up past the sky, Beyond the stratosphere, where...