Best Philip Poems

Quiet, pensive, waiting, from out of nothing, a flash, dancing!
Back and fourth, faster, bolder, more beautiful, more radiant…
The sound envelops, and the beauty firmly wraps its hands around my ears…
Relevance and resounding, growing, pulsing, whipped into a fever!
And then easing back just a bit, like...

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Are We Not Brothers, Made From The Same Dirt,
(Tribute to  Philip Freneau and his poem,
The Dying Indian)


Are We Not Brothers, Made From The Same Dirt

I welcome you- sweet dawn, soft break of day
As your vibrant voice sounds, seeming to say
Lad, I bid you relief...

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The marching band played John Philip Sousa

My daddy held my hand

Lining the streets elbows to my head

My daddy put me on his shoulders, where I could stand

~

The marching marines stopped in front of us

And in synchrony stomped boots our way

The men sang in perfect harmony

Daddy...

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Philip is an inchworm, he has neither legs nor feet,
He also has no arms or hands like others on his street.
Phil isn’t good at football, and he can’t run round and round.
His hand eye coordination’s missing something quite profound.
He’d like to play a tennis match...

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He was alone and lonely.
Sadness swept his eyes 
before he jabbed at me 
with his cynical sarcasm.

He slowly lit his Camel.	
It was a simple act of murder
and he was a scholar of sorts –
a player of chess, a fan of poetry.

I knew I was under...

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  all time stopped
        ravenged* by what had gone before
a chance given to take a breath
              gravity suspended
      ...

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Goodbye, Prince Philip, husband of the Queen, age ninety-nine.
Thank you, for giving up prince hood from Greek and Danish lines.
Thank you, Royal Navyman, for setting prisoners free;
thanks for wildlife protection and awards as D of E.

January 13, 2022

Contest   A Celebrity Epitaph
Sponsor	Michelle Faulkner

He was...

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You look me over as if you have never seen me.
I am dressed in sackcloth, tied to the pole.
I am St. Joan of Arc, my bones burning me from the inside.
You are the inquisitor; you weigh the verdict in your hands
and pick at your fingernails....

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Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit...

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Phillip, dancer of the skies,
Artist of heaven crosswise.
The god of the twin towers
Made obedient by a wire.
Phillip, a winged man.
Elegant and poetic,
Charming and majestic.
City birds above and city crowds below,
Both couldn't fathom
The celestial waltz above New York he showed.
A horizontal thread spread across the top...

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Prince Philip with his blest* sterling legacy
keeps reigning midst his regal Queen’s history
marked by God-granted tasks of royal duty
championing Britain and its grand monarchy. 

*Ezekiel 46:16 Thus saith the Lord GOD; If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, the inheritance thereof...

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 The piano music is quieter now
He barely hears the tune
His mother’s right beside him
He wonders if she'll ever know
He was just trying to help
Trying to protect his father
Trying so hard
Just trying

He chokes out one last line
The light is dimming now
He wonders how it is,...

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Stained glass castle
with teakwood walls
fingers heating up the keys 
sent soulful down the halls
Leather bound book of Paris
from 1928
maps of streets which know your feet
which your return do wait
Scent of Monaco on your sweater
sand from it's beach in your shoes
You're no longer called a traveler
by...

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At sea
Fish of gold gleams 
Old memories return 
Beam of sunset’s pink light sent from
Valis...

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He didn’t make 100
So there’ll be no birthday fest
But the Windsor Castle Chapel
Is where he will lie at rest.

Prince Philip died at 99;
The flags will fly half-mast, 
With ceremonies more subdued
Than in pre-Covid past.

The Queen and all her subjects 
Will join in to mourn the...

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