by phillipw | Dec 8, 2024 | BR, DO, FR, WH
Physics Trounced by 24-carat Gold For Donald who is dead these many nights and days I see that in this photo I am blond But I have never noticed until now That Donald, too, is yellow-haired beyond The age of others who went brown. The wow In this is that while...
by phillipw | Nov 11, 2024 | FA, WH, WO
Look at His Eyes First Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Try looking at the brother on the right, Far right. What wisdom do you see in eyes Above his winsome smile? A photo’s blight Is that it...
by phillipw | Nov 4, 2024 | DO, FA, HE, IV, PH, WH
Big Eyes, Bigger Insight Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I dare you all to tell me what you see In eyes the farthest to the photo’s right. Clairvoyants alone might hold the key To fathom out...
by phillipw | Nov 4, 2024 | DO, FA, HE, IV, PH, WH, WO
The Tidy Family Composition Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem We see him in his 1950s suit. Beside him sits the alien he wed; Her hairstyle would turn E.T. dumb and mute. Of course, this...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2024 | MA, WH
The Ambulance Waiting Out There . . . The smell of medicine remained once they Had told her tender lies and taken her outside. They gentled her and took her straight away To steps the ambulance gave as her guide. Before this they had told her it was just A visit to...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2024 | EI, PR, WH
Above the Big Old White-paged Bible She Held, Though Below It Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem She did not have to breathe. Why breathe when lungs Were lifted into visions and in trance With Christ and...
by phillipw | Mar 17, 2024 | CA, FL, SI, WH, WI, WO
As Dead As Sabbath-keeping Saints Columba and Patrick on Their Long Lost Shores Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem I cannot quite call back to mind and heart My father’s voice, not even when he told...
by phillipw | May 31, 2023 | BO, IV, WH
The People Who Too Easily are Bored The people who too easily are bored Have boring minds, my brother Ivan says. When brains were given out, too many scored At low IQs. Not one of them’s a wizz At anything except their boredom. If They sit alone without their...
by phillipw | May 29, 2023 | AU, SI, WH, WI, WO
Aunt Wilma Singing “The Holy City” in the Tiny White Concrete Block Church in Sabbath Titusville Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem What feelings would my father have enjoyed While sitting in the elder’s...
by phillipw | May 28, 2023 | CH, MA, ST, Uncategorized, WH
E-scrapbooks of Holiness Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The images consulted most are those Of love, well, lovers. Highest in the search Are photographs where we and lovers pose. Clichés count...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2022 | CH, DR, MA, MY, WH
Modesty’s Refinement from a Winter’s Afternoon The curtains in the bedroom at the front Were Margaret’s last and accidental gift To me. Before their hanging day, death’s stunt Destroyed her. She was sucked right through that rift...
by phillipw | Nov 30, 2022 | DE, FR, QU, WH
The Verges of Oblivion Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem These ones lie now in death except in scraps Like tombstones, marriage licenses, and birth Certificates. From these no useful maps Can...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2022 | EL, FE, JO, SM, WH
Godly Stones Crying Out “to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness” Leviticus 16:10 The prophet’s tongue is loose. It waggles, this Direction, that. It solemnizes truth, Then censures it. It gives Jehovah’s kiss But then his condemnation. God...
by phillipw | May 28, 2022 | DE, DY, MA, WH
As She Lies on Her Deathbed The tulip petals have been turned to pale Translucent beauty in their death. The oval petals have become a veil For ghosts to wear, like fragrance from the breath Of phantoms. Lavender has faded, dawn Reduced, a fading caused by...
by phillipw | May 18, 2022 | DE, MA, WH
Beyond Beyond this writing of ourselves upon Eternity, we need the finite veins Of heart. It teaches love is not withdrawn When we have left. Love hovers leaving stains As breath upon the air of heaven’s light. The light and air both...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2022 | BA, CA, WH, WO
Canaveral Olympic Sport The Splashothrills In Response to Wordsworth and the Daffodils The brothers and the sisters set a race Of sorts. They go out to the little dock And brace up on that sunlit wooden space, Banana River space. Some lift up frock...
by phillipw | Apr 5, 2022 | CA, WH, WO
Dance Floor Wonder, Wow! Canaveral in the 1920s stood For ultra boondocks-ness. A band made up Of ukulele and a shiny wood Guitar and small accordion played up For tiny audiences in the hall. Still, people simply have to make do with The stuff to hand. But then a...
by phillipw | Mar 11, 2022 | CH, PH, WH
Ultraterrestrial Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem My brothers’ lives are alien and far Away from mine. The wives float, quite . . . unknown . . . Along with foreign things like...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2022 | PH, WH, WO
Parthenogenesis Paternal If I were only Woodrow’s son, yes, just His son, not his and Helen’s, then my heart Would sing with dreams and poetry, gold dust Of life. My mind would separate apart The pettishness of daily living from The mountain clouds of Florida...
by phillipw | Mar 9, 2022 | HE, PH, WH
Parthenogenesis Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem If I were only Helen’s son, my heart Would be direct, or more direct, as straight As Queen Medea in her hate. Apart From planning, I would be as...
by phillipw | Dec 13, 2021 | WH
Whales and Red Wailing Whales never shut their staring eyes but when They sleep. The shutting of the eye for whales Is hard. If they could use a fountain pen, They would not want to write the wounding tales Of what they see in decades underneath The...
by phillipw | Nov 8, 2021 | CH, DO, FA, HE, IV, PA, PH, WH, WO
There Wasn’t Any Hill in Brevard County, Florida, but There Were Songbirds The oatmeal made with milk and honey . . . and With mother love . . . was eaten with the sound PATTI PAGE – Mockin’ Bird Hill（1951）with lyrics – YouTube Of “Mockingbird Hill”...
by phillipw | Nov 7, 2021 | CH, FR, LO, PH, PU, WH
Elementary Love He didn’t notice that the yard in front Was small. At ten he thought that it was big, Or large enough. The two of them could hunt A hiding place beneath the Turk’s Caps, dig For doodle bugs, and daydream play. Both he And Brian...
by phillipw | Nov 6, 2021 | BO, DU, GA, Ho, MU, PA, PH, SE, SI, ST, WH
Jalousie in Natural Light—Avant la Rêve For Mrs. Pat Silver and Bob Stubbs She chose a piece called “Jalousie” for flute And keyboard that was strange to both the boys, But then the both of them were teens. To suit The ceremony “Jalousie” had poise But sounded...
by phillipw | Sep 26, 2021 | AE, DE, EM, PR, RA, WA, WH
Barbaric Yawp His “poetry” is not so much a thing Of barbarism as it is bad Greek Or Roman oratory. In its ring It has the sound of bombast. No, not sleek, But more like overstated prose tricked out As verse on pages. Rhetoric high-flown Quite...
by phillipw | Sep 1, 2021 | DO, IV, WH
The Heel Hit His Back so Hard it Killed All the Nerve Endings Where it Smashed We played our games together. Some were mild Like using rubber bands to shoot brothers With paper ammunition. Some were wild, Too wild at times. If we had our druthers, We’d spice the...
by phillipw | Aug 6, 2021 | DO, HE, WH
Donald, Woodrow, Helen Reborn in other creatures, souls must haunt Us. How could it be otherwise? He knows It cannot be his brother Donald, gaunt Upon his cancer bed and in the throes Of death, but when owlet’s voice cries out, Cries out, cries out,...
by phillipw | Aug 5, 2021 | TI, WH, WI
Singing Travels Vast upon Past Waters ~ for Wilma Whidden Sisson, soprano Grandiloquent the blossoms by her lawn Around the back werehidden from the eyes Of neighbors, Petals have a brilliant brawn Of redness, orange of a wide surprise, Hibiscus of a cream-like...
by phillipw | Jul 28, 2021 | FA, IV, MO, OB, PH, SI, WH, WO
Single Perspective Single Perspective Single Perspective All All All Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The single-hearted skylark calls to mind My brothers and my father and my true, My truest self. Our...
by phillipw | Jul 24, 2021 | WH, WO
An Object Lesson for the Brevard County Church Elder Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He works beneath relentlessness of sun And sweat of air above him and around. It’s true that later clouds will form...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2021 | DE, MO, PA, PH, SA, WH, WO
Grave Offering Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He breaks the burst of blossoms off the tree, The spray of life in blooms, and hauls it to The back part of the car. Cemetery Rows wait. He...
by phillipw | Apr 20, 2021 | BI, HU, OS, PH, Uncategorized, WH, WI
Hyperthymesia, , William Louis Hunter V, SRA Reading Lab, and Oscar Wilde Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Bill is in the white cardigan. I’m in the dark sweater in the center. My boyhood...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2021 | LO, RO, WH
Promises and Lies I send a card with animals–a mare And foal, a badger, and a fox and fawn– Facetiously upbraiding you. “Unfair!” I claim. It seems that you were sick and wan, Had promised you’d “bounce back” by...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2021 | HE, JO, SN, TH, WH
“A universe of sky and snow!” Philosophy can’t clip an angel’s wings. At most it might pluck out one pinion white As purity in Jesus. Thoreau sings, Denies that he and God were in a fight— I didn’t know we’d ever quarrelled— speaks The dying man. He loved a...
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 24, 2020 | CH, DE, FR, LO, MA, MO, PH, WH
Doppelgängers Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem You almost smell despair of men alone When they have lost that one friend, that one near They found they loved as if a holy clone Had...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2020 | AN, FE, HE, JO, LA, PA, PR, TH, WH, WI, WO
Presence Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The past is never past, is more than ghost Or Undead creature. Passed away the past Is not. It lives within. Its whispered boast Inhabits mental...
by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | BI, CA, DO, EA, FL, MI, OS, PE, PO, WH
The Cape Consider what the cape desires. It wants to see The clouds of birds that used to fly above It in their immemorial paths, sea And sea and sea beneath their search for love And nestlings. Cape Canaveral wants the white And white and white...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AN, DA, HE, IC, PH, TH, WH, WO
With Straight Gold Bars I sat beside my mother as the sale Was made, the purchase of The World Book Encyclopedia. I loved the pale Cream, knobbled leatherette, the noble look Of deep maroon square placed on spine of each Restrained and heavy volume, glossy...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | BE, FL, HE, WH, WO
Deer-tongue The smell of deer-tongue came to me today From decades past. I mean the fragrance of The dried out leaves, as dried out as the splay Of decades since my father taught us love, His sons, beneath the Florida sun, leaves That called up beauty...
by phillipw | Jun 11, 2020 | AU, SI, WH, WI
Woodrow and Wilma Recalled in a Mystic Setting “and scream among thy fellows” He walked at night inside a dream along The sands of Cape Canaveral, the shore Woodrow is in the dungarees Beside his father’s boyhood. A song Had touched it long ago, a song much...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2020 | AR, BL, CH, EA, HA, HE, Ho, MA, WA, WH
Backside Gas in that Jar Called Yale One Harold Bloom says modern verse began In 1890—or about then. That Is what one venerating friend claims. Can That be? Only an academic prat Could be so arrogant and blinkered. I Say modern verse began at least as far Back...
by phillipw | May 24, 2020 | BA, PH, PR, WH, WI
The Little Prince Who Grew Like me he grew up slim and sturdy, blond As Greece or Florida in sun. He crawled And stood up. Women around us were fond Of gold smiles, Philip and Phillip. They mauled Us with their cuddling kisses. We were fine, Right through it all,...
by phillipw | May 21, 2020 | FO, RE, SA, WH
February Fox Last night the fox we feed in bowls behind Our house came just at twelve. His long, thick tail Was bushier than last time and defined By flakes that fell and fell within the veil Of cold for whitest hours. He, taking out His chunks of chicken one...
by phillipw | May 18, 2020 | AR, DO, IV, PH, WH, WO
Under the Florida Son On Wilson’s first Inaugural Day A “man” was born. His father always called Him “Man.” For instance, Archibald might say, “Go do your hunting, Man.” Archie’d been galled To have so many females in his life, Was thrilled to have...
by phillipw | May 17, 2020 | DA, ME, RE, WH, WO
Antechambers My father’s residence was memories As if a chambered nautilus turned back To find in older shapes a lustrous ease As snug in paradox, as neat in tack As any yacht that sails against the wind. He found his comfort in a smaller place When he, an...
by phillipw | May 7, 2020 | BO, DR, JO, LA, PA, PH, WE, WH, WI
Recurring, Not Forgotten Florida Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem The childhood cosmos that returns in dreams Is full of butter suns, smooth, yellow, bright. The light is not like melting candy creams...
by phillipw | Apr 14, 2020 | DA, HE, WH
With Straight Gold Bars I sat beside my mother as the sale Was made, the purchase of The World Book Encyclopedia. I loved the pale Cream, knobbled leatherette, the noble look Of deep maroon squares placed on the spines, each Restrained and heavy volume, glossy...
by phillipw | Apr 1, 2020 | WH, WO
Woodrow Wilson Whidden, Senior My father did not smell of manly sweat. He smelled of loyalty. He smelled of faith And dedication. His idea of debt Was what he owed to family, wife, love, faith, And sons. An elder in a tiny church, He sat behind the pastor; did not...
by phillipw | Mar 12, 2020 | WH
Big Bros The younger brother, he’s allowed a trick Or two. They’re more like party tricks with snakes And mumbo jumbo, stuff like really slick Love poetry, those whatnots where the stakes Aren’t high like God, Intelligent Design, The...
by phillipw | Feb 18, 2020 | CA, WH, WI
Aunt Wilma’s Voice Aunt Wilma’s voice had wings within it. They Were all the species she had known on Cape Canaveral—and others. The array Included hummingbirds, their whirring shape, The shimmer of the nightingale and lark. In church her...
by phillipw | Feb 17, 2020 | CH, PH, ST, WH
Your Echo Comes from Long Lost Time ……. …………….. Your echo comes, reverberating from Lost hours, those twenty thousand days betrayed By absence, nights whose sweetness will not come Now, never be redeemed. Not even grayed Out...
by phillipw | Feb 15, 2020 | HE, WH
Strokes My mother is an oval brooch now. She Is carved from colors like those pralines made Of deep brown sugar and pecans. We see Her head, the blonder layer in the shade Of beeswax in the silhouette above The darker ground behind her profile...
by phillipw | Feb 6, 2020 | HE, ME, PH, WH
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose Today I chew the peanut butter, sweet Grape jelly, white bread sandwich which she made For me those sixty years ago. I eat Not just a memory refusing to fade But actually the groundnut spread and dark Fruit layer in between the...
by phillipw | Feb 2, 2020 | PH, WH
His Hair [The infant Phillip sleeping under a Florida fan] The air blows just above his brow. Hair lifts And falls like thought inside an angel’s brain While drowsing. Curls like these are gentle gifts From heaven. Silks like these can know no...
by phillipw | Jan 13, 2020 | FL, WH
Click on the link below. My Aunt was Beautiful like a Hollywood Glamor Queen pics.doc
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2019 | WH
Family Portrait Sonnet–a Sequence An Ideal Shape and the 1950s He lined us up in no conceivable Arrangement, except a pyramidal One, which is only just perceivable. Our father’s smile is not a riddle; He was a handsome, square-based man, and so The...
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2019 | DO, WH
Donald Anthony Whidden She holds me on her lap, embracing with Her arm and hand my young boy ribs and blue Pajamas. It’s become a monolith— This portrait—packed with family meaning, true Or not. My brother leans against his dad, A cheek against that dark wool...
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2019 | IV, WH
Ivan Louis Whidden Ivan is on the far left In the portrait Ivan has a distant Look, almost a simper—an artefact Of darkroom doctoring, that persistent Saccharine retouching, to hide the fact That we were human beings? And we were, Despite our mother’s...
by phillipw | Dec 26, 2019 | PH, WH
Span Span Span Span Span The earliest of colored pictures of Him shows him dressed in blue, but not a blue Of firmness, not a strong one. Pastel love Perhaps was its prediction. Pale is true, Though, also. Manliness is not required To be one hue. Maleness...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2019 | WH
Removed from the Sinister (Second from the Left) …… Pastel and false in various ways, the pic Is truer than its maker meant. He thought To make us perfect, 1950s slick. Despite this sophistry, the vision caught Tells truer truths than visual ones. ...
by phillipw | Dec 25, 2019 | WH
An Ideal Shape ……….and the 1950s He lined us up in no conceivable Arrangement, except a pyramidal One, which is only just perceivable. Our father’s smile is not a riddle; He was a handsome, square-based man, and so The group’s...
by phillipw | Dec 19, 2019 | WH, WO
He Kept the Seventh-day Sabbath My father, Woodrow, had a thing for goats. When on Canaveral as a boy his dream Was having them as pets. Friends wanted boats, Or guns, or cars. Young Woody didn’t deem These trinkets worth consideration. Nope. He wanted kids, and...
by phillipw | Dec 17, 2019 | WH
The Cover Version of Myself I love the cover version of myself. In it my flaws become, like, cosmic laws. I am affirmed. I’m magic as an elf Backlit with Rudolph’s nose, and Lassie’s paws Reach up in scrabbling worship to my chest. She licks my face, slavishly. ...
by phillipw | Nov 24, 2019 | CA, WH, WO
Woodrow (born on Woodrow Wilson’s 1st Inaugural Day) with His Wife, and Wilma (Half Sister)—All Homestead Pioneers on the Cape Who Had Their Homes Taken Away from Them for Building the Space Center—Watches the Launch of Apollo 11 Woodrow on the far right of the group...
by phillipw | Nov 13, 2019 | CA, FL, TI, WH
Woodrow Wilson Whidden, Sr. 1913-1999 ; 1:32 in the Afternoon, July 16, 1969 Khonsu; wikimedia commons He had a lion childhood made of shoves And tumbles, little nips, and blinks, there by The sea of Florida with sisters’...
by phillipw | Nov 2, 2019 | FL, WH
My Aunt Jeanette was Beautiful like like a Hollywood Glamor Queen and my Mother Wanted to Wear Jungle Gardenia The taste of Florida sunshine, its smells And colors, orange blossoms against green Leaves, evergreen in sunlight, wetly swells...
by phillipw | Nov 2, 2019 | MA, Uncategorized, WH
La Serenissima Surprise We thought her color wasn’t blue. We went To Venice then and suddenly we knew The truth. We learned that she was always meant To find the right ensemble of a blue So subtle that its lace and velvets showed Up several colors—blue of...
by phillipw | Oct 29, 2019 | WH, Y
The Poet at 26 The miracle is that once I was a young Man. Innocence was colored gold and white Then. I was living like an angel’s tongue Before the fall of Lucifer, as bright As tongues could be in heaven with its gem Foundations and transparent...
by phillipw | Oct 21, 2019 | WH, WI, WO
Father’s Voice I can’t remember what my father said Except when he was storytelling, or Declaiming poetry, or when his head Was full of politics or God. His store Of beauty came in tales, or ringing lines Of loveliness and joy, and plots he spun, And...
by phillipw | Oct 18, 2019 | HE, ST, WH
“kitty kitty kitty” Was All She Could Say I cannot now recall my mother’s throat In words. For more than twenty years her speech Was dead before she died. A muffling bloat Occurred inside her brain. It was a screech Of blood that silenced her. No...
by phillipw | Oct 13, 2019 | BR, WH
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by phillipw | Oct 11, 2019 | ME, WH
The Windows The windows, shining in an afternoon Long lost, a light of long lost boyhood day, Let in enough of childhood sun to spoon Some beams of beauty for the lad. The stray Shafts through abandoned panes were just enough. His eye fell on the toy...
by phillipw | Sep 1, 2019 | WH
Beeswax Hero He had his own concocted scent, his smell Made up of khaki mixed with beeyard smoke— And sorcerer’s words that cast a bedtime spell With everything that stories can evoke. His wife read books and these were wizards to The brood, but though they held a...
by phillipw | Aug 25, 2019 | LO, PH, WH
An Affair with Sonnets . . . For Eternity “Eternity in an Hour” ~ William Blake If kisses were less mortal and could last As long as death, your lips would lead to realms Inhabited by gods—and even past Nirvanas since your hot mouth overwhelms Awed...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2019 | WH
Mere Knowing is not Remembering I have one picture of Aunt Ruth way back In Pensacola time. That’s all, except One fragment from her dying days. The black And white snap…that’s it. All the rest is swept Away in blankest loss, except that thing She mouthed...
by phillipw | Aug 18, 2019 | WH
White Dwarves White dwarves are stars which want to cease their lives. They crave a gravity-less suicide. These globes want death. Each dwindling sparkle strives To free itself from life. In fact, it’s died Already, or it lingers, comatose Beyond revival,...
by phillipw | Jun 8, 2019 | JE, WH
Jeanette Black and White Her eyes cast down as if ashamed of style And beauty, she is captured. She is held Forever in the falseness. All the while This image has existed, it’s compelled Jeanette to be perfection with a full Dark lip weighed down by knowledge of a...
by phillipw | Jun 5, 2019 | WH, WO
Under the Florida Son Under the Florida Son On Wilson’s first Inaugural Day A “man” was born. His father always called Him Man. For instance, Archibald might say, “Go do your hunting, Man.” Archie’d been galled To have so many females in his life, Was thrilled to...