by phillipw | Mar 30, 2025 | CA, ME, TR
A Life As Though on Vellum Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem His life was filled with little monsters, not Much more, not cancer and no earthquake, no War. Monsters for this man were no more fraught With...
by phillipw | Mar 28, 2025 | TR
Those Who Speak Correctly Are Excommunicated Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The editors bring out the silence since They blow off beauty. And, yet, even worse They publish anti-beauty more like mince...
by phillipw | Mar 27, 2025 | AN, OL, TR, YE
Wordlessness Allied with Pontius Pilate Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Fortingall Yew High priests of ancient wisdom keep your tongues In silence always. (Winds may make some sound Among your...
by phillipw | Mar 22, 2025 | EX, MO, TR
Those Who Speak Correctly Are Excommunicated Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The editors bring out the silence since They blow off beauty. And, yet, even worse They publish anti-beauty more like mince...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2025 | BR, CY, PI, SE, TR, YE
Stoics Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The ancient trees teach manliness, the way It lives and means. Sequoia and yew And cypress show rigidity but sway Enough. They say their roots...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2025 | TR
Against Screwtape’s Missal He knows the tongues of stones and dunes and sand, Those tiny rocks that only mystics know. He knows the languages that wind has fanned Across the deserts till they meet a mesa’s glow And dryness. Tumbleweed, mesquite, the best...
by phillipw | Mar 4, 2025 | CH, DO, JE, PU, TR, Uncategorized, VL
Gog and Magog to the Fray Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Great deceiver of the world” ~ A. Cleveland Coxe The prophets never thought about the chance That Armaggedon could be caused by...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2025 | FR, MO, TR
Fundamental Stuff Endangered species — sonnet, villanelle And triolet — are crushed out now by verse That’s “free,” where form and rhyme have gone to hell. If only this stuff tended to be terse . . . But, no, it dribbles,...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | DO, EL, MU, TR
DemocKKKracy X the Anagram of Evil When priests ignore the meaning of the rite, When God forgets the meaning of the knife That slits the throat and brings on endless night, The humans left behind in clueless strife Continue with the ritual, so bound They are to...
by phillipw | Jan 31, 2025 | MO, TR
The Modern Ships Retreat from Searching for the Golden Fleece Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The word ship he is making is a war Machine upon the sea of poetry. The battles are between him and a corps...
by phillipw | Jan 28, 2025 | AV, MO, SA, ST, TR
Sailor’s Intercourse in Avila Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Inside my warship made of words I feel I do not need a spyglass, do not need New maps. I do not need some other keel Or rudder. ...
by phillipw | Dec 10, 2024 | SE, TR, Uncategorized
“As all the Heavens were a [Hollow] Bell” the music of the spheres If I could fall forever through a space We can’t imagine, through the space where spheres Are less than spirit, where mere physics’ place Is less than we can see, through...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2024 | SQ, TR
Truer than True Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Those things inside our throats are waiting for Their meaning. Music sung begins as notes Which once inside the mouth might want to soar...
by phillipw | May 6, 2024 | TR
Out of the Many, One Creed Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A thousand hilltops And neon’s autumnal leaves, One transparent brook. ~ Shiki (Englished by Phillip Whidden)...
by phillipw | Oct 18, 2023 | RO, TR
Buirdly Pitlochry was the nexus of the soul, Religions’ soul, when Stephenson was young. He might have been a Hindu in his role Of savant. There he spoke with seer’s tongue Upon the village street. He saw a man Mistreating his puir dog and...
by phillipw | Jun 28, 2023 | MO, TR
The Poetry of the Triune God: a Cord of Three Strands Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” tttttt Eternal gyres together one times three. The...
by phillipw | Jan 10, 2023 | DE, TR
Ultraviolet Poetry True poetry tries not to be a phrase Or meaning, but a color God forgot To make, a tint of blue perhaps, a phase https://images.app.goo.gl/wA9L2aQmRaqN9KgU9 Of orange, that purple punctured Jesus sought When vinegar in sponge was forced...
by phillipw | Jan 2, 2023 | BR, CO, FI, TR, WA, WO
Grotesqueries Military Cross given to Siegfried Sassoon for his “conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy’s trenches.” Imagining the worst might happen, Brooke Writes out a letter to his mother who Is gung ho for the war. His fears unhook...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2022 | CR, SP, TR
I Saw Boys Playing Cricket . . . . . . in white upon a cricket ground today In Oxfordshire as if long centuries passed And made no difference. There I saw the sway Of bat. Tradition in a woollen cast, A cast, though supple as the hips and thighs Contained in...
by phillipw | May 14, 2022 | TR, Uncategorized
Untroubled Gaultier Green The May-time trees put on their costumes, green, Green, green, and greenish yellow, style. A few Are copper beech in color. All have sheen Of silk and satin, every one. Their coup D’etat is total like a Paris show Composed by...
by phillipw | Apr 24, 2022 | HA, PR, TR
Gleaned from the Darkly Glowing Web Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The rightwing ravings from a friend of long Ago are like the readings in a mind Inside an ancient prophet with a strong Dementia...
by phillipw | Apr 24, 2022 | BE, HA, Ho, RE, TR, VE
Truer than Truthem Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Great is Beauty’s grace, Truth is yet as fair as she. ~ Thomas Campion High duty comes in...
by phillipw | Dec 14, 2021 | DE, SH, SI, TR
Simple ’Tis the gift to be simple ~ Shaker song The sea seems simple in our sight today. The waves, if varied, do not vary much. They come and go. They come and go. The way The sun comes up is ordinary, such As many days before. Of course it finds The mountain...
by phillipw | Nov 13, 2021 | BR, IM, RU, TR
Him For Us . . . The rooms in School House echoed with the sound Of words he spoke, his steps along the hall, His laughter, even shouts. The outside ground, In, say, the Close, though large, was far too small For such a mind and soul. You...
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 27, 2021 | AE, ES, PO, RE, SE, TR
What Poetry Should Be and Never Be Too many people think that poetry Should be like this one photo of a dusk. They think that poetry should only be Pink, lavender, and fuzzy clouds. No musk Of malenesss, armpit smell, and not, not, not A waft of crotch sweat from a...
by phillipw | Sep 7, 2021 | DI, GI, GO, Ho, JE, NO, PA, TR
Supreme L-o-n-g-s-h-o-t-(s) The Father reigns supreme in every way. It’s all a bit uncertain if the Son Came later and is lesser (this sounds gay) But still divine. And then the other One Is even more ambiguous. We know This biblically,...
by phillipw | Sep 5, 2021 | CH, GO, Ho, JE, TR
Does a Daydream in the Mind of God Become Reality? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When Jesus has a daydream on his throne, The Holy Spirit and the Father share It since the Trinity has always known...
by phillipw | Aug 9, 2021 | GA, GU, HE, IS, JU, LA, PA, TR, ZE
Pitifully Bulging with Restraint The ancient myths refrain from giving hot Exactness to sex swollen loves. The gate Of Troy is breached, but Homer leaves out taut Male flesh in ram and slam of lust in spate Between Queen Helen’s legs. When Zeus rapes up Inside...
by phillipw | Aug 8, 2021 | AN, HE, IS, SE, ST, TR
Iseut of the White Hands Slick She moves her white hands down to find his dark Disgustingness, exactly what her need Is in this darker moment. Long, and stark, And thick it promises disgusting seed If she is brave and desperate enough To take it everywhere...
by phillipw | Jun 8, 2021 | FE, HE, MA, SE, TH, TR
It Takes One Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Henry David Thoreau writes of Chaucer, “We are tempted to say that his genius was feminine, not masculine. It was such feminineness,...
by phillipw | Apr 10, 2021 | CH, EL, OA, ST, TR
English Trees in Innocence For Charles Randall Stanfield The broad-limbed trees of perished English years And centuries are witnesses to realms Long gone. A duke or princess disappears While tallest peerages, the oaks and elms, Continue in their reign. They spread...
by phillipw | Mar 14, 2021 | AE, BE, BU, CO, ES, MO, SO, TR
The Sonnet in Its Little Room The sonnet, much too like a tight cocoon, Encased inside its silk-like threads is far Too tiny and too strict but not immune To mystic grandeur. It is not a czar Upon a dais seat raised up and vast Of gold, but more a derringer...
by phillipw | Mar 13, 2021 | TH, TR, UN
Heartwood Needing Treatment Love feeding on itself will waste away No matter how enamored. If it sucks Its Valentine-ish marrow, sickly gray Disease will follow. Suffering deluxe Is suffering nonetheless. If he or she Does not return the hungry love, the gloom Is...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2021 | EM, PO, RA, TR
Sexual Torture The phrase in Japanese “comes smelling out” Becomes just “wafted.” What a letdown such Attempts result in, only a Girl Scout Translation. Poetry deploys a crutch When being forced across from foreign tongue To foreign tongue. When...
by phillipw | Mar 4, 2021 | CA, SY, TR
Concealment or Revelation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If minds could play the instruments of mist, Sopranos sing the songs of unheard souls, And treble boys in choirs sing amethyst Magnificats,...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2021 | BU, RE, TR
Día de los Muertos and Egyptian Pyramids Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons The lotuses in...
by phillipw | Jan 20, 2021 | HE, HU, IS, MA, MI, RO, SE, ST, TR
Iseut of the White Hands “[…] then he was such that all who saw him said that if he was not a brave knight he really must hate his fine body. And indeed he was so handsome that Iseut herself, who was called Iseut of the White Hands, fell madly in love with...
by phillipw | Jan 16, 2021 | EN, EP, PE, SA, TR
Insights The pint-sized Jamie held his arms out wide To show how big the peony had spread Those petals. “Big like this!” he smiled. He tried Hyperbole the first time. He had shed Mere factuality for larger truth. Young Yank, he aimed for...
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 10, 2021 | TR
Trees For Charles Randall Stanfield They do much more than just be god-like, trees, Make fruit and limb spans, just be makers of The blossoms, bark, and roots. The leaf that frees The oxygen to air is far above These gifts. The trees refuse to...
by phillipw | Jan 3, 2021 | EP, MY, RE, TR
Who Can Know? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem It seems that God (or gods) goes moving through The dawn invaded by exhaustion in The night. The hormone tentacles construe The twilight...
by phillipw | Dec 31, 2020 | AL, DO, EM, TR, WH
The Innocence of Snow Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Wherever snow is, it is always just Like snow in other places. Snow in Rome And Paris lies just like the holy dust Of manna in the desert,...
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2020 | LA, SE, TR
Karen Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem She had a laugh composed of dusky fat. It seemed to earn its way through twilight sound. The laugh was like a husky playful brat Controlling sex...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2020 | BI, CH, EA, GR, IC, OR, TR
Declines and Declining Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The wood that makes the icons’ boxes lacks The holiness that throbs, still, through these saints And sacred ones. Despite the inner cracks...
by phillipw | Nov 2, 2020 | BU, TR
The X4 Route to Bracknell The cityscapes we wander through at night Are foreign from the sights we see in days, More alien. We pass a neon site That we have never noticed in the maze Of roads that aren’t a maze in morning hours. Streets loom as Hallowe’en-like in the...
by phillipw | Oct 15, 2020 | AU, CO, GA, Ho, TR
To the Right The sign instructed, “to the right.” It said, “Go right.” The right had sapphire eyes and wrote With clarity for fate. A blond male head Conceived the sign. Pale whiskered meanings bloat Beneath the notice for the damned. They walk...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2020 | AU, CO, DA, EM, FA, HE, Ho, MA, NE, RA, TH, TR
Mystics of Concord Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem New England thinkers mixed autumnal views With leaves from Homer, also Dante’s leaves. That blinded poet managed to suffuse The thoughts...
by phillipw | Oct 8, 2020 | AM, DO, PO, SU, TR, UN, US
Would-be Dictator, a Reptile-like Surinam Toad The President begins to sip his tea. He holds the cup, not daintily. His firm Two fingers grip the handle. His decree Has just been tweeted. Those who start to squirm Are not considered. Gazing out beyond The roses in the...
by phillipw | Oct 7, 2020 | EL, PO, SS, ST, SW, TR
Translations of Poetry Are Not Like Translations of Saints to Heaven Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Elijah Translators kiss a piece of writing to Another language. Does the piece survive This...
by phillipw | Oct 6, 2020 | FE, LO, RO, SI, TR, VI
Closer and Closer Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Am I the vine and you the fence? I feel Perhaps it is the other way around: You vine—and I the mesh. What would appeal Most, though,...
by phillipw | Oct 4, 2020 | CH, LO, SA, SO, TR
Na + Cl A purity, a silver white, desires To bond with yellow-greenish chlorine; salt Appears in crystals. Far away from fires, The point of this affair adorns a vault In darkness in a cavern. Blackness blanks It out. A wish becomes a zeal that...
by phillipw | Sep 17, 2020 | AN, AS, GR, HE, JE, PY, TR
Infant Mild and Astyanax, the Son of Hector, Hidden in Hector’s Tomb Our western world begins its dating with The birth of one warm glowing baby. Glow And gilding in the paintings are like myth. They make truth truer. Little foot and toe On manger straw are our...
by phillipw | Sep 16, 2020 | AN, CO, Ho, IL, PO, Ta, TR
Taironan Troy See “Mucho más que libros,” Semana, 4 June 2001, Bogatá “At the time of the conquest, the Tairona had different cultural practices than Modern Native American populations. Ethnographic sources highlight freedom to...
by phillipw | Aug 10, 2020 | DE, DI, GH, GO, HA, JE, SO, TR, YE
Knowing Men Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. ~ Ezekiel 16:49 Both Sodom and Gomorrah, salt-lick...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2020 | HE, TR
It’s All We Have The landscape that we know touchingly we Refer to as the present. It is what We map and that is all. We cannot see The facts of other times or see the strut Of future or of past. “The noo,” as Scots Pronounce it, is our limit. We pretend...
by phillipw | Jul 27, 2020 | KA, LI, MA, NU, RE, TR, VI, ZO
Some readers may find this piece offensive. If you think you might be offended, please do not read it. “Both in the Heavens and on Earth, Visible and Invisible” ~ Colossians 1:16 Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem...
by phillipw | Jul 26, 2020 | OR, RE, TR, WO
Orpheus and Male Reincarnation When Orpheus decided that he craved Escape from women utterly and so Desired migration of his spirit saved From birth to any of them and to go Instead into the beauty of a cob, The poet did not try to fly away To some escape from further...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AE, AG, AR, BE, ES, MA, PR, TR
Upon the Face of Agamemnon “and also he [King Priam of Troy] admires Agamemnon for his beauty” ~ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XIII, 906 Forget that Helen for a moment. Think Of gorgeous men. The King of Troy could not Resist men’s beauty. Helen caused a stink That...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, AN, HE, PA, TR
Two Men in Love in Death Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “Hector dies, and when at last in Book XXIV his corpse is recovered, it is laid out and Andromache holds Hector’s head in her lap,...
by phillipw | Jul 18, 2020 | EP, HE, MY, TR
The Poetic Kind of True Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The stories begin in kinds of truth. As events recede in time, they grow not smaller but larger in language. The ancestor who fought...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | OR, PO, TR
The Creed Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “One mustn’t accuse Virgil or Ovid of originality, of wilfully making fictions of such importance. By the time of the Roman poets, everything was...
by phillipw | Jul 15, 2020 | PO, TR
Where? Where? Where? “Achieved poetry paints with at least one colour which can be found nowhere else.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 19 Do you know just what that color is? Gods’ Eyes must contain it—goddesses’ more so— Yet can we see it there? Perhaps it...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | AM, PO, TR
Plato and Powerful Enigmas Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When best, it hums ambiguous like tunes From dead archangels, or like rubbed out lines On palimpsests, or like the muffled runes From mouths...
by phillipw | Jul 10, 2020 | AP, BI, LO, TR, UR, VE
Plato’s Ideal For Denise/Josh and Rachel/Robert Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem [Uranus, the god of the heavens, is both father and mother to the goddess Aphrodite in Plato’s Symposium.] The...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CO, FR, LO, RO, TR
France, the Ancient Place of Love “In the mid-fifth century [B.C.], however, a Greek at the Cap d’Antibes inscribed two verses on a black stone shaped like a penis: ‘I am Mister Pleaser, the servant of the holy Goddess Aphrodite.’” ~ Robin Lane Fox, The Classical...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CO, FO, PO, TR
Formal Poetry against Free Verse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Plato in “inventing some extraordinarily powerful images of his own” came up with “notably the poet as Corybant”. ~ Penelope...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | CL, PO, TR
Ars Poetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The...
by phillipw | Jun 30, 2020 | AN, CO, TR
Comedy or Tragedy: Someone Should Have Told Shakespeare Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse When comedy was talked about, the thought Of Plato and his mates was that the laugh Was different from the groan. A playwright ought To write...
by phillipw | Jun 30, 2020 | AN, PO, TR
Costumed Judgment Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse The royalty and myths and heroes of Those eras far removed in masked up time Produced the primal tragedies. The love In them, the hate, and motives for each crime Are seen...
by phillipw | Jun 25, 2020 | CO, FR, MO, TR
Defeat in Battle ………. True beauty is allowed to lapse to make Some room for what is novel, just the new, As if by definition modish ache Is better than the perfect pain. This skew Along to holiness of fashion runs The flopping risk of...
by phillipw | Jun 17, 2020 | MI, OR, RE, TR
Invisible Ivory Music Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. ~ John Keats Herus Pamphilius claimed that Orpheus’s drifting soul, destined to be incarnated anew in some other physical form after he had died, elected to be born a swan so that he...
by phillipw | Jun 14, 2020 | CL, NE, TR
Ars Sonnetica Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem...
by phillipw | May 20, 2020 | AN, CL, PO, TR
Once was Evil Enough The ancient tragedies of Athens played Upon that stage just once and then were rolled Around themselves in paper. They had made Impressions strong enough and so were scrolled Up, waiting … silently … for who knows what? For paper...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | DO, ME, TR
Trump and Melania, Liberace and Scott Thorson,Verlaine and Rimbaud … the List Goes On and On https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saQ5PY4XyYQ When men grow old, they suddenly can still Be caught up by cyclones whirling in their veins. The younger winds around them...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | BL, BR, CH, DE, ST, TH, TR, Uncategorized, VI
Inhalers Created for Chuck one day before the anniversary of his birth. “When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched through the...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | PU, SA, SI, ST, TR
The Truth Exposed Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “…in Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell, §178; after he has described the garments of the angels, some of which glow with flame, some of which...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | TR
RachelROBERT The ancient myths about strange beasts composed Of body parts from different creatures fill Some need inside the psyche. Boys enclosed Inside a female body ache until They realize the truth about their sex. The suffering starts as if it’s...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | CL, FO, PO, TR
Ars Poetica “The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The ‘classical’, then, is ‘first class’, though it is no longer heavily armoured.” ~...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | PE, TR
There’s Perfection Three Times Perfection “All other loves are lost in only thine” ~ Alexander Pope translating Ovid writing in the voice of Sappho An ocean is a puny thing compared To outer space, more like a quark to strengths Of galaxies. Just as the Big Bang...
by phillipw | May 16, 2020 | AG, FA, Ho, LU, TR
It was (you may say) satisfactory Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When once there was a war above, not all Was wrong. The heft of heaven is the strength Of its stability. The walls, though tall, Are...
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 13, 2020 | FO, PO, TR
Beowulf as Instruction for Living Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If only life, our stuttered lives, were like Sestinas or like Anglo Saxon lines Of poetry, each unseen ghostly spike Of caesuras that...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | Ho, PO, TR
Blind, not Blind http://ytellioglu.tumblr.com/post/86727114823/world-view-according-to-homer-prior-to-900-bc The poet didn’t matter as a man With quirks and motives of his own. He spoke From guts of culture, from the bones of clan. He spoke in patterns of...
by phillipw | May 13, 2020 | AN, KN, TR
Ancient Greek Knowledge “Men must learn by suffering. Drop by drop in sleep upon the heart Falls the laborious memory of pain. Against one’s will comes wisdom.” …..~ Chorus in AGAMEMNON, Aeschylus translated by Louis MacNeice The classic Greeks knew death...
by phillipw | May 12, 2020 | PO, TR
Oral Poems from the Past Conservative as brocade velvet, verse, The older forms, embraces in its folds The ancient tongues, the peoples’ tongues. They’re terse In ballades. Such rigidity upholds The thinking of the folk as if a starch Were added to the richness...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | CH, GO, LO, MA, SA, ST, TH, TR
Storm in the Friday Night Love Feast Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He raised his blue-veined wrists in notes to God The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The last Force was to come, bolts to the...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | GO, PA, TR
Only Paradox is Universally True The cosmos touches me and I know love And also it is more the other way Around. The highest heaven far above And God’s foundations join as one. A May Of charity expresses one long truth That matters. When that spring explodes inside...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | AM, PO, RE, TR
What is Poetry? Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “something irreducible in poetry” ~ Michael Schmidt, The Story of Poetry, 11 Some love a certain murkiness in lines, With paradox and oxymoron prized....
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | DO, TR
Great Again Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem So this is how I felt when Tronald Dump https://bwpa-images.s3.amazonaws.com/winners/NETY2xYJPwimmYsXn.jpg Won stupid votes in Rust Dump zones,...
by phillipw | May 6, 2020 | TR
Unbound the Book Some somewhere not within the view of eyes A book lies open. It is perfect, full, So full that it can always bat off lies If it is read completely. It will pull The soul. Perfection means that it is free Of boundaries. We may write, and...
by phillipw | Apr 29, 2020 | CR, DI, GO, TR
“Work of the Father of Glory” ………. — “weork Wuldor-Faeder” ……………~ Cædmon, “Cædmon’s Hymn” Ideals, those wonders that are perfect, come From only one perfection. Like begets Its like, its offspring, that proceeding from...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | NI, TR
Buddhas Better than Methuselah If you become a buddha, would you know It? Would you suddenly break through the world To calm sublimity, escape the flow Of suffering and time that long has swirled Around your body and your soul and in Them? If you made this leap, would...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | IM, MA, TR
Himmortality “In 1999, the futurist Ray Kurzwell published a book entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines. He looked forward to a future in which the ‘human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems . . . and...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | GO, TR
Enough Trouble Caused When we began to put the gods in myth And the language of the poets, transcendence Died. This literature became the smith That pounded, flat, godly ascendance To make them jewellery foil for our minds. They used to be so coolly far above Us that...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | DI, GO, TR
Bow Down Thine Ear Gods used to be transcendent, far beyond, Above, away, unreachable on cliffs Too high to scale. We, humans, were so fond That we imagined Gods behind white whiffs Of mists in sacred precincts set aside By...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | BI, SP, TR
He Might As Well Have Written Obscure Poetry So Socrates believes not just that Soul exists But is bipartite and tripartite, both. He postulates a mixed up nature. He twists And turns, an ancient Greek as mental sloth, Since this is contradictory at worst And badly...
by phillipw | Apr 13, 2020 | DO, TR
TORToise President He bestrides the world like a colossal tortoise When everything he touches turns to mould, You know there’s something very, very wrong. His gold-like wife has sold herself for gold, Though, yes, we could have known it all along— That she’s not...
by phillipw | Apr 3, 2020 | TR, Uncategorized
Trump Disregard That man who dominates the TV screen Can dominate the world. Cool Hollywood Stars manage much less power. They’re far less seen Than TV guys or even Bollywood Stars. Real reality is not as strong As highly rated reality shows. Charisma in...
by phillipw | Mar 31, 2020 | PE, TR, VE
Colors Truer than Truth Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Not veiled and partly veiled, completely veiled, The peonies are like a perfect prayer, Perhaps one to the Trinity. Exhaled In reverence the...