by phillipw | Jun 14, 2022 | AR, LE, LU, PA, RI, RO, VE
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Lucien Létinois Verlaine’s emotions are too distant, far Removed and cleft from violets of verse He filled French veins with, each line a devoir Of sorrow, since his feelings were as terse As AK-47 rounds. His lines Were written out like blade...
by phillipw | Oct 3, 2021 | BU, FA, LE
Symmetry in Asymmetry The fawn Shakes off the butterfly And sleeps again. ~ Issa A sacred symmetry descends upon The drowsiness of spots, haphazard white, Set out on red brown pelt. The sleeping fawn Is wakened by the...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2021 | BU, LE
Rhapsody on Breezes The butterfly when chased goes still along Its way unhurried, winging on in calm As if Nirvana were its space. The wrong May be its foe, but yet without a qualm It flits in peace the Buddha would desire. The evil net is reared up for...
by phillipw | Jun 9, 2021 | GA, JU, LE, SW, ZE
The Age of the Gods Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The age of gods remains the same, a still Forever. As they were, they ever are, And ever will be, in a changeless, chill, Transparent medium. ...
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 10, 2021 | IL, LE, MA, ME, MO, TH
Medieval Razzmatazz in Le Morte d’Arthur Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Than he com on so faste that his felyship semed as blak as inde.” ~ Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Let’s...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2020 | BL, BR, DE, GA, Ho, HU, JE, LE, MO, UN
The Song for the Statue of Liberty Sing out your foreign song. Sing out your truth. Sing out the way that you are different from The rest. Chant out from in your Succoth booth Or from your monastery. Let songs come From pink brown Harlem lips. Involve the...
by phillipw | Sep 15, 2020 | BI, CH, DE, GO, IS, JU, KO, LE, OL, QU, RE
Dead Sea Salt, not Caves “Many soul-destroying things/In folded tablets” ~ T. S. Brandreth, The Iliad of Homer, 1816 I know those soul-destroying things, those things In ancient texts on parchment, vellum, or Papyrus, rolled or folded. Suffering...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2020 | AS, FR, LE, SA
Refuse and Refuse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The refuse after war is what he had Become. The refuse after battle with His father but first the trash, the bad Boy, as the refuse after war. ...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | GA, LE, PO, SO
The Triune Potency According to Penelope Murray, “Socrates . . . . says, ‘any story or poem . . . narrates things past, present or future’ ”. ~ Plato on Poetry, 4 We want a poem that is full of now, And past, and future, full. We want intense Severity of...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | AM, BI, GA, LE, LO, LU, RO, SE
The next sonnet may offend some readers. If you think you may be offended, please do not read it. Plato Hated Poetry, Poor Thing First Sappho catalogued the symptoms of Tsunami wave emotions. Sickness like This malady has been treated as love By writers ever since. ...
by phillipw | Jun 19, 2020 | AN, LE
Heroes, Victims, and Poseidon The metre of ancient Greek poetry succeeds in “achieving a length and complexity that are unusual in the heroic verse of other literatures.” ~ Michael Grant, The Rise of the Greeks, 325, as quoted in Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 16....
by phillipw | May 22, 2020 | AR, GA, HE, Ho, HY, JA, JO, LE, ST
Herakles, the Greatest Greek Hero, Outshone His Junior, Jason (a Bright Star), in All Majestic Ways John Keats perverts the “bright star” image. First An ancient poet wrote that Jason shone, “A bright star,” such as one that brides would thirst For, brides-to-be,...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | CA, DA, KO, LE, LO, RO, SE
Only Lovers Cannot See Ahead Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem All kinds of lovers? Do we mean the sort Who love because of hot testosterone? Then maybe that is true. Such hormones thwart. The kind of...
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 26, 2020 | LE, MU, VE
Donna Leon I’m tired of Donna, not of Venice, though. Brunetti is still likeable enough And Paola’s improved a bit. The slow Starts to the crime plots make it tough For readers used to fiction of this kind, Detective novels. Some might think,...
by phillipw | Apr 11, 2020 | LE
Sappho and Lesbian Sex Films for Men to Perv Over “And when we come across the ‘I’ in early poetry . . . we have to read that pronoun warily. What the ‘I’ says belongs to the performer [means what the performer wants it to be]; it may have been factually true for the...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2020 | AN, HE, LE, MU
Whistling in Koranic Wind “We will meet in the Paradise of free souls to which you will never have access.” ~ Antoine Leiris addressing the islamists who murdered his wife, Helène Muyal Helène Muyal A sentiment so lovely must be true. At least the part of us some...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | FE, LE
[When this sonnet was written, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s trilogy of books about his walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul (which he refused to call Istanbul) had still not been finished. Indeed, it never was. The third volume was called appropriately The...
by phillipw | Jan 16, 2020 | FE, LE
A Wintry Gift According to Leigh Fermor, Keats was found In rooms filled up with antlers in a schloss Which Patrick visited. A Horace bound In gilding and in green he took across The continent—a sixteen hundreds book. It was a baron’s volume handed to...
by phillipw | Oct 6, 2019 | CA, LE, NI
Commencement: May Day At last, the miracle comes round again: Bright blossoms, leaves are born along the bough And May Poles rise—while no one thinks of pain; Commencement, so long striven for, is now! Commencement comes, a miracle for one Among the caps and...
by phillipw | Jul 29, 2019 | LE
A Wintry Gift From ghostofelberry.wordpress.com According to Leigh Fermor, Keats was found In rooms filled up with antlers in a schloss castle Which Patrick visited. A Horace bound In gilding and in green he took across The continent. A sixteen hundreds book, It...