by phillipw | Apr 30, 2025 | Uncategorized
A Sonnet is a Breath that Tries to Immortalize a Sigh If I could tie a knot in time, that knot Would bind up you and me, a red star bow Around us for eternity; if not That long, since even goddesses all know That nothing lasts forever, then for time Times time, or...
by phillipw | Apr 30, 2025 | CH, SE, Uncategorized
A Resurrected Apollo in the Afternoon in Brevard County, Florida Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem No mist defied his eyesight but a haze Surrounded everywhere he walked. The grove Behind his boyhood...
by phillipw | Apr 29, 2025 | Uncategorized
When the Tain behind the Glass of a Mirror, and the Glass Itself, and the Mirror Itself Are All One with the Universal One, Then We …Know When mirrors are not mirrors but are true Instead, at once are both, but only one Together, two; when moths are emerald blue...
by phillipw | Apr 27, 2025 | Uncategorized
Fools Gold Street Lamps Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The orange groves of Florida have been Killed off. Their souls have gone to heaven where They look upon their scars and us. Where...
by phillipw | Apr 26, 2025 | Uncategorized
Pluto’s Shoulder Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Stone carved with symbols tends to make them harsh Or far more beautiful because the soul Of beauty lasts in marble, hard gem harsh As...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Only Always Present Emotion Some breezes in his life were shrouds and turned To long-term winds. His wedding was the one Most crippling, both to him and her. It spurned Their cores. The long-term garment had been spun By culture over centuries. The warp...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2025 | Uncategorized
Wayne and Terry Now both are gone, gone, so . . . so what? One wrote A lie and sent it to the other. Then A mother snooped and read. She made the bloat Of scandal and then other, loveless men Stepped in with social cudgels. Bragging weighed As...
by phillipw | Apr 25, 2025 | Uncategorized
Physics and Gravestones in the Old Settlers’ Burying Ground in Lancaster Massachusetts Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem photo By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Dior of Desperation If I could wear the sadness that you cause Me, cloth of nails with tears would make the suit. The Iron Maiden or the pharaoh’s gauze Around the mummy would make pain transmute To Galliano flair. The toque above my face Would mean...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2025 | DE, Uncategorized
Death versus Poetry’s Continuing Life Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Death looks for me among the orange groves where I lived my childhood nights and days. I left Them long ago, their seaweed...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2025 | Uncategorized
His Father Called the Indian River’s Cumulus Clouds the Mountains of the Sunshine State Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He never rode on horseback through the trees Around his childhood...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2025 | CA, DE, Uncategorized
Malagueñas The music of the tavern comes on black Flamenco stallions. Horseshoes cause the banged Out rhythm. Death is seldom Spanish slack Though always sweatless. Drinkers are harrangued With songs that rise from olive groves too old To...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2025 | Uncategorized
Black The hundred riders dressed in black bemuse The orange groves, arthritic olive trees And Andalusia. Horsemen give no clues Except that black and so the peasants’ freeze. At least the bones in chests near hot air hearts Congeal until the entourage is...
by phillipw | Apr 12, 2025 | BU, CH, MA, SE, TO, Uncategorized
El Guapo with Melanistic Monarchs Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem El guapo swaggers through black butterflies, As black as hair on him, on body, head And upper lip, as black as pupils, eyes That stab his...
by phillipw | Apr 11, 2025 | AR, AU, LA, LO, MI, Uncategorized, WI
Notes on a Forgotten Burial Ground Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The cemetery where his aunts lie deep Beneath the sand of Florida hulks deaf To poetry. This trio lies in sleep Far lower than a...
by phillipw | Mar 16, 2025 | MU, PH, PO, Uncategorized
Gravity Music Poetry Love Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem £Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Though poetry, it seems, cannot resist The...
by phillipw | Mar 15, 2025 | Uncategorized
Performance as Sacred Solitude; Bach’s “God’s Time is Best” on the Sabbath in the Village Church, So. Lancaster, Massachusetts Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Performing music is a private thing. An...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2025 | AB, GA, RO, Uncategorized, YA
In Romeo’s Ghost’s Clutch I slept in you without your knowledge. You Were sleeping in my arms and I slept in Your brain and yet because my eyes are blue Your mind did not hold on to me. No sin Arose, at least not in your sleeping soul. I cannot promise...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2025 | Uncategorized
Anathemas Are Never Pronounced Against Mount Sinai Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Those things that cannot bring themselves to move Are what the prophets tend in silence. Stones Are what the prophecies...
by phillipw | Mar 10, 2025 | Uncategorized
Heavenly Spheres of Orange Groves In my father’s house are many mansions If I could hold your hot heart in my heart, Then heaven would heal. That paradise would be A paradise that God alone might chart If he were everywhere. That God could be Surveyor of the citrus...
by phillipw | Mar 6, 2025 | Uncategorized
Unruly in a Village Cemetery They did not dream it when alive, yet ghosts Are happy when they find a way to cause Disruption as in polar bear cracked coasts, Antarctic shores — or like Antarctic claws From killers, icebergs floating toward the fate Of...
by phillipw | Mar 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
My Sonnet Wants to Be on Vellum Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I know it’s nigh to blasphemy, but still It’s true: my focus on the form I use Is like obsessions of the monkish quill And brush that in...
by phillipw | Mar 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Mind’s Rule Says There Is No . . . The rain of yesterday stalks up my soul Though that is quite impossible because I do not harbor one. No, no-one stole It, not a devil or a god whose laws Forbid such theft. I simply never had A soul. I’m not from ectoplasm of...
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 | Mar 2, 2025 | BI, LI, LO, Uncategorized
In the British Library and Later He spends his life among the books, the great Ones, yes, of course. He reads about men’s love, Of Lancelot for Guenevere, and hate When men love men. He asks himself, “When’s love If men love men and...
by phillipw | Mar 2, 2025 | Uncategorized
Fake Views a la Oedipus America is throbbing with those who Have thrown away the truth, have stabbed their eyes Out. Misery of coveting shoots through What used to be their heartblood. They breathe lies And when they do not get enough, a mouth Produces...
by phillipw | Mar 1, 2025 | BO, GA, GU, Ho, Uncategorized
Awe, the Akkadians, and Two Men in Love Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Loch Awe, embraced by Scottish hills alone, Lies long beneath the troubles caused by wind, Perhaps of troubled hearts. The cairns...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2025 | Uncategorized
Living Love I’m tired of poetry about the lack of love, How one man loves and someone fails to gasp In holiness of height’s devotion of A hoping heart and does not reach to clasp The sacrament on offer. Incense tries To send the...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2025 | AE, BE, BL, ES, Uncategorized
The Firmament Above, the Flowers Below Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem In dawns and twilights, winds prefer their lips To whisper, breezes coming, if at all, As gently as a smile. Their fingertips Just...
by phillipw | Feb 26, 2025 | CH, ST, Uncategorized
“Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” Hamlet, Act I, sc, v, 98 Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you were ghost and I were ghost with you, Would specter mouths be tempted, bringing lips...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2025 | Uncategorized
Burning Burnt Orange Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem There’s orange and then there’s orange of silk. That lords It over other colors. Purple bows Before it. Others have no right in chords...
by phillipw | Feb 22, 2025 | Uncategorized
Dumb Confusingly, (confusedly) he claims That silences have shapes; a silence has A shape (it follows). Saying this he maims Clear thinking. Silences are more like jazz, Progressive jazz completely jagged stuff. It’s good that he’s...
by phillipw | Feb 21, 2025 | ME, MU, Uncategorized
Music Drama Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We almost never want the notes in scales. We want the melodies. We want the lilts And rhythms. We want music that gives trails To memories...
by phillipw | Feb 20, 2025 | BO, GA, GU, LO, RO, Uncategorized
Orange Passion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Not often mango sunset clouds and sky Cause burnishing of Scottish lochs that shine In orange of special garnets. Northern Skye Is foreign to...
by phillipw | Feb 20, 2025 | Uncategorized
Lost and Spellbound The abstract breasts that jut out in the frames Of Modernism, jutting out and flat At once, Picasso’s amalgam defames, Because he wants to shock. He had a spat With lovely art and so se wegt his bile. The spewings on the...
by phillipw | Feb 19, 2025 | LO, PU, RO, Uncategorized
Scottish Mists Cleaner than Before Marriage The air — our air — did not need cleaning. Clean Was clean already. Blackness of your hair Was perfect. Nothing like hot iodine Was needed. Scottish lochs did not need prayer. Love’s prayer was prayer...
by phillipw | Feb 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
Give Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary p My words will drown unheard without your love Upholding them. The Hellespont invites Them, as it did the young old, young pure love Of Hero...
by phillipw | Feb 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
Scotland’s Pleistocene and Little Ice Age Glaciers Were Just as Pitiless Despite the lochs our words were drowned unheard. Despite the village on the Pentland hill, Our words of love were lost. Long decades shirred Our love and words, and crinkled them to kill...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Dripping Chimes across Millennia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Blond honeycomb and liquid amber drop In every era, not just in our time Or through lost 1950s days. The crop Of orange blossom honey...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Diddy and Al Capone Gnomes That leper, poetry, is exiled now To margins of the world, especially if Its lines are rhymed and rhythmed. Fat hausfrau Is how it’s viewed. It’s found to have a whiff Of corpse which seems to be like dried up crap. Now...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
Logic and Love will Set You Free Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The magnifying glass of language helps. The notion of a science made without That lens makes sneers. True poets cause the whelp Of...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
Saint Valentine’s Day Sonnet Sequence; five sonnets for Saint Valentine’s Day Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Are You So Sure? “You are not repeat” ~ W. S. Graham, Aimed at...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | HE, RA, Uncategorized, WH, WO
Healthy Helix Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He thinks that he is not a monster, not His father, not his mother, a bit Too much like both, but too much like a clot Of two good people, sucked...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Day before Saint Valentine’s For Granddaddy Baxter Wilson The doctor’s forms do not require to know If you have been a criminal but need To say if certain parts of you now glow With viral love and whether manly seed Shoots tinged with fun you never...
by phillipw | Feb 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
Or William McGonagall He has this feeling he will never find His home, not in this or in another more Expansive incarnation. God’s broad mind Is not an option. On another shore With Buddha we might blackly learn That we are trapped again but in a...
by phillipw | Jan 29, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Reincarnation of Hippolytus in Florida Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Another dream he had in boyhood nights Trapped boy upon the brackish shore, lagoon Of seaweed shore, and like the nightmare...
by phillipw | Jan 29, 2025 | Uncategorized
In This Dream I Believe I Flew Near You Among Your Orange Trees in Andalusia Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He dreamed he learned to fly, first levitate, Then fly across his father’s property. He...
by phillipw | Jan 29, 2025 | Uncategorized
Never Mind the Brahan Seer Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem At times we wake up wide in sleep called dreams. The Greece we never visited comes up In visions worthy of its Iron Age gleams. We see...
by phillipw | Jan 29, 2025 | PH, SA, ST, Uncategorized, VA
Laid Out Not for You to See The cameras cannot call up fingertip Of touch no matter what the Canon lens, Of kiss, a red caress. Ohhh, linger lip On satin touch with wet. Vas deferens Is far beyond the scope of camera click Unless removed from love, and who...
by phillipw | Jan 20, 2025 | BI, Uncategorized
Birds Control with Melodies the Changes of the Hours Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The mockingbird sings not to us but to The hovering night. He brings the evening on Northern Mockingbird Sounds,...
by phillipw | Jan 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
Buried for Millennia in Darkness of Dead Dreams Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If roses turned to pyramids, their weight Would add no beauty. Brilliant hues would all Be banished in blank sanctums to...
by phillipw | Jan 15, 2025 | Uncategorized
Not Silently, Not Silently, the Wondrous Gifts Do not forget the shapes that you have known. You ken the ones I mean. The ones you took Out, played with, licked, you now recalling groan As only hearts can moan. Don’t overlook The forms that you have fondled. ...
by phillipw | Jan 14, 2025 | FE, MA, Uncategorized
Curves with Weight “and Adam knew Eve” Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pixabay The beauty in a woman shows the etch Of curves. Those hips are not just there as on That early man. They forced the Christ to stretch Them in His universe at...
by phillipw | Dec 31, 2024 | Uncategorized
“The silent stars go by” ~ Phillips Brooks The stars are silent, always silent, though If one soars through another auraed star, A roar must sound. Their particles must go Right through coronas. Each hot haar must scar The other but the silence, once profound, Turns...
by phillipw | Dec 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Thorny, Growing Things Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A sonnet wants to go somewhere, not just Within itself. It travels in its thought And themes. It wants a wider wanderlust Perhaps of...
by phillipw | Dec 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Grasping Your Soil Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The acrid root of love has gilding on It. Wrinkles on it are not hidden by The gold. They look like shrivels that are drawn By greed. ...
by phillipw | Dec 21, 2024 | Uncategorized
Though ’Twere 10,000 Waves Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you were near a distant loch, away The miles from England where I dream of you, Dream daydreams of the hair on you, Strathspey Between us,...
by phillipw | Dec 21, 2024 | Uncategorized
Olympus and Mount Helicon Inside Us Always Our singing starts when mind and heart awake A pen or tongue. The singing might be notes Or words, composer or the poet. Blake Or Brahms begins inside us. Singing floats Out from our fingers or our mouths. The lips Then...
by phillipw | Dec 21, 2024 | Uncategorized
Behaving Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If I could be my Prospero, some hours Perhaps, perceive the cosmos through his eyes While hiding underneath a shrub from showers Of English...
by phillipw | Dec 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
Nosebleeds in a Coffeehouse Might Help “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked” Howlers annoy. The “poets” speak their lines In limping prose and then expect the rest Of us to call it verse. There should be...
by phillipw | Dec 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Spitting Cobras Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Spitting Cobra | The Toxic Sprayer The darkest planets are the ones you taught Me I should fear. Pink holes of blackness are Their realms. ...
by phillipw | Dec 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Missed Less than Non-existent Mist Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Though raised in 1950s fear of war, Atomic war, and 1960s threat Of it, I almost never think of it, no more Than thinking of an early...
by phillipw | Dec 17, 2024 | Uncategorized
Planets for Poets In days, millennia, in centuries, nights To come, will poets think of you beside The widened oceans? In rock coves and bights Will writers sing of your inflowing tide? Will poets sing in depths, in time Much deeper yet because in coasts...
by phillipw | Dec 17, 2024 | Uncategorized
Blue and Lavender Might If rain were lavender or blue, our ways Might take us back or forward in our space/ Time. I might learn to dance sand merengues MERENGUE DANCE BASI Y DEISY Along a Caribbean blue-fringed grace Of waves. If lavender, the rain might make...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
My Brother Ivan Gave Me a Large Chunk of Petrified (Crystallized) Wood Decades Ago As eons pass, some things become serene In death and nearly everlasting in Their beauty. Logs condemned to mud come clean In loveliness. The minerals that win Inside their cells...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
Maine Morning Message Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We think of Maine, New England and the snow, The snow that comes so soon in winter or Fall, even, locked as hard as Allah’s No Until the power...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
Cute Kitten in a Dream Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You know how dreams are. Hallmark isn’t what They aim for. Roses and perfume? Forget That stuff. Their nightmare purpose is to glut...
by phillipw | Dec 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
Elijah Translated in a Blazing Chariot Becomes Undying Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We spend our days translating English from Trash phrases into tongues of fire and flame. We save...
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 | Dec 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
Transfusion not Transmigration I need transfusion of your blood from you, Inserted needle in my veins, the flow Of red and white cells from your heart and through My person and my spirit. Help love grow Throughout my body, giving what you can Inside my being, giving...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
Unkindly Stopped Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem A hearse draws up. Though it is black, its team Of horses is electric lavender. I know therefore that it has come to scheme Against me. I must be...
by phillipw | Dec 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
Margaret Redux Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The dreams of her are coming fast and thin. She fills my bed with foreign images Quite unrelated to her, more a twin Of monstrousness. ...
by phillipw | Dec 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
Two For A. Y. Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We always knew, or felt we knew, that love Is not just heart, that it was mind as well, Some kind of mind at least, perhaps above The...
by phillipw | Nov 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
No Conversion Therapy His eyes hold blacks that Jesus wished to be When he loomed next to Lucifer, the blacks That oceans hold beneath each night-time sea, Not surfaces but depths that only lax Hearts know. His eyes hold feelings blacker than Unfallen angels...
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
A Wombless Vacuum Lacuna Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem It seems I yell out nothings, nothings, not One thing the universe desires. My clouds Are chocked with ambiguities, more clot Than what most...
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Cat Lustre How long does glow upon a black cat’s fur Last once his steps are gone? He disappears In night without a moon. Does gloss turn blur, Or worse? If fur goes where there are no spheres, Does it then sublimate to nothing through...
by phillipw | Nov 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
All-embracing Ideas that come from wombs which give them ears Because these thoughts have listened well before They speak, these hear the screaming in your tears Before you feel them. If ideas have more Than auricle and cartilage, the nerves...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2024 | Uncategorized
Claire Austin Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Some snow is sifting down, white snow, not quite As white as winter snow, an orangey pink Where snowflakes joined their stems. The...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2024 | Uncategorized
Haumaea, Hawai’ian Goddess of Fertility Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem File:Haumea Rotation.gif – Wikimedia Commons If you were making worlds, the spheroid ones, Those almost perfect spheres like...
by phillipw | Nov 4, 2024 | Uncategorized
Encoded Uncertainty Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The tiny poet sits up on the lap Of Mama, neither clueing what the years Ahead will hold. A family never has a map Of futures, no...
by phillipw | Oct 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Advice from the Cavern at Delphi Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Let feathers of God’s silence lift your ears Above the blare, the skirl near you, the sound Of Thursday prose. Await the...
by phillipw | Oct 27, 2024 | Uncategorized
Fire Inside His Will His eyes have Titan clouds inside them, clouds (Prometheus in color) long before He met the beak. His pupils have white shrouds Like cataracts to hide from him the war Between all gods and men. This means his hope Lacks clarity...
by phillipw | Oct 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Adolescent Philosophy Is Wet Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem When hair on chest is not quite new or old Long after armpits make announcements, too, Young males are dragged along in being bold In...
by phillipw | Oct 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Purpose of Preying Plumes Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Do fledging on your heart and feathers on Your mind. Your eyes might need some feathers, too. The point is flight beyond yourself, a swan...
by phillipw | Oct 21, 2024 | Uncategorized
Whoever Heard of Surging Love in Holland? Can deep romance occur in boring, flat Terrain? Not even in Italian fields With cypress trees, tight shapes, can hearts combat The boredom of a sort that never yields The passion that romance requires. No notes Of music can...
by phillipw | Oct 17, 2024 | Uncategorized
Similar Sense Twin Sonnets: Paired Sonnets A Fair Lot with Bucephalus “How fair a lot to fill Is left to each man still.” ~ Matthew Arnold “Sohrab and...
by phillipw | Oct 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
Over Millennia The autumn, with tall steppings like giraffes, Brings colors taller, taller than the rest Of seasons. Graceful, slim months come like laughs Of palettes, legs and necks in step and blessed Like warmer spots, a million autumn leaves Upon...
by phillipw | Oct 2, 2024 | Uncategorized
Loveliest of Trees — an Antidote to Autumn Foliage Imagine drinking saké underneath The cherry blossoms. Saké and the food Are not about our deaths and joys — a wreath Of loss and life. This day is for the brewed Sak-ura-flavored drinks, the pink of blooms, The...
by phillipw | Oct 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
No Matter Where You Bathed Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem No matter where you bathed, the water would Have turned to gold, a liquid gold that gods Would know. Your black dream hair was like a hood,...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
Things Fall Apart When We Fail to See Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Some poets aren’t the prophets of the world. At times these poets come too small. When Yeats Pronounced a dissolution deeply swirled...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The purity escapes, is hard to grasp Unless you do it with your handless soul. The purity escapes. No latch or hasp Can hold it since you know the unseen whole Is...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
Silence is Only Silence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The moon has never made a pond grow dark Or deep, or punched a hole in it, nor made A poem underneath the wet, or shark To lunge. If...
by phillipw | Sep 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
Out of Joint with Petty Time Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If you are filled with contradictions, you Have hope and not despair alone. You may Not be a Hamlet with a prince’s view Of kings and...
by phillipw | Sep 25, 2024 | Uncategorized
“Ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being forever” ~ Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia If we exist forever, well past time, Mere time, our lives will be much fuller than Our slim imaginations. We will climb Past Alpine heights, more star-like, than a man On...
by phillipw | Sep 25, 2024 | Uncategorized
Ghost Sharks Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Ghost sharks are sharks and not. These sharks, these fish Pre-dated sharks and rays for eons. Ghosts In their appearance they look...
by phillipw | Sep 25, 2024 | Uncategorized
“And Man Became a Living Soul” Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem ~ Genesis 2:7 Consider what your soul wants most of all, The bhumisparsha not required. The palm Holds fingers pointing out to...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
Heaven and Earth “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.” ~ William Blake When gods get bored, they leave eternity And step through gauze-like curtains into time. While being trapped in their supernity, They yearn for thrills on earth and...
by phillipw | Sep 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
My Hermitage Where I Sit in Isolation Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Perhaps I’ll build a hut just off a trail In Appalachian mountains far away From everyone and everything, derail The rush, block out...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Garden of Moksha, Fragrant Orchids and Night-blooming Cereus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The petals of eternity will bloom, Or never will, because of you and me. The good that we create will...
by phillipw | Sep 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Words Do Not Have to be Gilded on Ivory Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The tatters down below the lines he writes Take on a meaning. There the smudgy stains Incurred inside his shopping bag are...