Tag Archives: poem

Far Flung


Hiker silhouette stands on the hill on and looks on the milky way galaxy. Dark starry night

Universe, far fling me like a smooth flat stone over a calm lake.

Take me within your palm and fingers and cast me side armed on a warm sunny summer’s day to go skipping on that lake.

I want to feel the satisfaction in denying gravity as I fly across the lake surface with an energy not of my own, like being strapped into a rocket breaking the confines of Earth’s mighty pull.

I want to know this freedom, this kinetic intensity, this uncontrolled ride into oblivion, this escape in a moment away from it all.

To forget the pull, and the weight of me.

Instill me with velocity, let me breath in the spirit of Hermes and let me run and skip along the edges of the space and time to venture into a wonderous desolation.

By Philip Wardlow July 1st, 2025

The Sad Magician


What does a magician know of magic when it’s all a lie from beginning to end?

Does he think he does real magic? Or is he caught up in his own illusion, with his cape, top hat, and sleek black slacks,  giving the audience a dark conspiratorial grin, as if he had access to some great mystery others do not?

Perhaps he is. Caught up.

Maybe he simply enjoys the wide eyes, the admiration, the controlling of outcomes, the smiles, the laughter, the sense of being one with the wonder in someone else’s eyes that are not his own.

For when he goes home, and removes his costume, he is alone.

There are no lights following him across the stage to his next trick, no applause, no adoration, no wonder, for him to hold onto.

Just him.

And that sadly that has never been enough for him or anyone for too long.

So he takes a bow
knowing he will eventually return.

And that has to be enough.

For the show must always go on, and he has a part to play for as long as the magic that still lingers within him stays.

By Philip Wardlow June, 2025

The Elusive Ghost


How do you progress when the world you live in is obsessed

Everyone, everywhere,  for that thing that distracts

And then rejects

I’m a shiny object to some but not the one that matters most, I’m just a helpful ghost

Lingering in a house vacant of passion that doubts it’s true nature.

A ghost insubstantial, you could walk right through me and not miss me.

But I’m waiting again

To feel again

To pop into existence

Til then…

I remain the elusive ghost

Content with being incontent

By Philip Wardlow May  2025

When Feeling was easy



When I was kid, I  soaked up the
world like a sponge,
I lived and loved life like it was breathing into me,
from building a fort, riding my bike, daydreaming on the
grass while figuring out what was in the clouds, hiking in the woods
with my brothers,  making discovery upon discovery,
with my family
even when it was at its hardest.
I felt it all, the joy, the anger, the rage, the sorrow, the fear
all the certainties of a day.
I felt it
There was no ambiguity about it.
I was in it and it was glorious!
Head down, I strode forth into it.
from school, to my first girlfriend, to lost girlfriends,
to family dysfunction piling upon the pile
that had already been there, to marriage,
to birth, to divorce, to remarriage,
to new joys, to new stresses.
I road it all like a surfer catching a
wave, I was cheered and revered
at my feats of strength, my charms, and
my worth at being such a great man.
Somewhere along the way through all that
I became afraid of reaching, feeling,
seeing, breathing, knowing, discovering, engaging.
I want that wonder back.
A part of me won't venture there,
for whatever fear that dwells in
me sees it is a perilous path,  a wish that
is fraught with failures not wanting to be found
I still love and notice the  all seeming magic that is life, whether tangible in
a kiss or a touch,  or a breeze  rushing over you at just the right
time on a sunny day.
I do still feel it but
a majority of that magic has been muted
perhaps forever more for me.


By Philip Wardlow July  2024

  

The Princess of the Nile Waters ( Go Fund me Request for a Friend to follow this Poem)


She has ever flowed in this world, miles and miles she has traversed in life, across countries and continents seeking purchase to lands she may truly never call home, for her spirit ever wanders, and splits and meanders, through various tributaries in time spent wading the reeds of sandy shorelines but never truly staying still.

The Nile has a source and she has ridden it since it’s conception, mile and miles of it, at various depths running deep to shallow, wide to thin, precarious to serene.

She is a Princess of that Nile, through and through, but if you were to call her that , she might scoff but give you a grin all in one, for she knows her frailties, and all her seeming feelings on how life can throw a whirlwind into the small space of you and upend your world in a moment letting you know the humility of life and the choices you think you may own.

But she is a Princess, a proud one, a strong one, a respected one, a forceful one, revered and honored, a friend, a sister to me and to many. She knows the strength in her bones and the force with which she wields it, even though she may not admit it, she will still give you a grin even though that grin may not reach her eyes.

She has wisely guided others in this existence, this wandering, even as she herself chafes against her own that pushes her down, yet she lifts others up.

The river has taken a precarious turn again, bend upon bend , upon bend…all sharper than the last, she sees them all plainly ahead, on the horizon.

She is resolute however. For what other course can she travel but the one already laid bare before her?

She may not want to see it, but the resiliency in her is awe inspiring, and that this Princess of the Nile needs to know that she has found her home in all the ones she has touched in her travels and her in them a hundredfold.

By Philip Wardlow for my sister Candice Louisa Daquin

(Candice is booked to go to the Mayo Clinic August 14 for 2 weeks. She is doing a GoFundMe because the cost of living up there for two weeks alongside the medical expenses and travel will be substantial. She wants to thank everyone who has helped, even $5 goes so far and helps so much. Even sharing the GoFundMe or just being supportive, is life saving for her and I am so very, very grateful. If you can spare $5 please go to the GoFundMe which is legitimate and run by her here: https://gofund.me/66328c9d or her PayPal at candicelouisa@rocketmail.com – thank you so very much. She hates begging but it’s so important to finally get there and get some help after these awful eight years of ups-and-downs and her being so sick now again. Any amount however small really adds up and helps her make this happen. ( her words, but just changed to third person by me)

My Hinterland


~ Hinterland: an area lying beyond what is visible or known 

An area I wish to go,
to get lost in like a hermit
in the woods of nowhere,
that somewhere no one else goes to because it can not be found.

Not at dawn, nor dusk, nor the in-between times

It’s all my time, my time.
My adventure, my mind, my place in my head of heads
where I softly tread a Universe of my own discoveries and foundlys of unique thought.

Mine to wrestle and wrangle and comingle the depths of philosophical phrases.

No matter how crazy, cruel, lazy, kind, or neurotic, dare I say perhaps erotic.

Just let it be. Let me be.

Let me find the way, or get lost on the way to this Hinterland I wish to call my home.

By Philip Wardlow Nov, 2023

Cuddling with Benefits – Erotic Warning


You asked me to come just
Cuddle
But I saw the slight curl of your smile
and knew I might be in for some trouble
Because I always thought with you
a cuddle, was a cuddle, was a cuddle
You said there would be others,
A plethora of partners to partake of,
A glorious heap, you said
All gathered nicely in your
California King of a bed.
But when I arrived at your door,
entered, and gave you a small kiss
I became transfixed on the bed
before me.
Not a soul did exist in this very place and time, not one on the bed, nor in the hall, nor the kitchen,
“Perhaps, the bath?” I asked.
“No, dear Sir, just you and only I, so forgive the ruse, but cuddling with you has taken on a new meaning betwixt my mind and you “

She walked languidly towards the bed in her robe which she casually disrobed, leaving no mystery to what ruse she had connived on this cuddling of all cuddling nights now in disguise.

A sigh escaped me. As I saw her in true form…silken fair skin, full pert breasts, curved hips to rounded bottom, to a well tended inviting flower just waiting to open.

She then lay upon the bed, exactly in the middle, and it was not lost on me that she crawled ever so slowly on her knees to get there as she looked back at me, long hair falling off her shoulder to one side.

Clever, clever,clever of a cuddling girl, she new what she was about as she smiled and patted a spot on the bed next to her all the while directing her willful gaze towards me.

“You know this changes everything my dear? ” I softly intoned, as I kicked off my shoes to the corner of the room, unzipped and dropped my pants to the floor, removed my shirt in a flash and was left with only my underwear betweenixt my cock and the air.

“OH, I know. This is next level. But you cuddle so very well, better than all the rest. You are the King of cuddles Sir…oh the very best. Now I just want that cock of yours to cuddle all the rest, inside and out and over and under. So remove your damn underwear and cuddle the fuck out of me real hard right now!”
So with that good people, I bid you adieu for my story is quite through and if I might say so this was quite overdue.

By Philip Wardlow October 11th, 2023

They Call Her Autumn


 They call her autumn
because she
wraps around you
like a flurry of golden leaves
in a whirlwind
You WILL fall for her
simply because her
violent nature demands it,
commands it.
A Tempest,
a wild child
which rides lightening
and flashes a grin that
fucking drives you
to your knees
Just try and stand against
the forces within her
and you will be taught
a cruel lesson about
natures full fury
once unleashed.
But autumn she is a beauty
a conundrum
a magical journey
if you be so bold to take it
Be you so bold?
To capture the surreal
and hold it close
Could you ever be so lucky?


By Philip Andrew Wardlow

Great Expectations of the Souls


What Soul have you?

Young and Impressionable, or Old and Jaded?

Both have their pitfalls.

The young one will put up with too much and wait too long to get out.

The old one will take a beautiful
moment and stomp it to death while crying into their pillow at night.

Expectations of the Impressionable Soul are racing, fun and fluid, chaotic and tragic in an instant of time

Expectations of a Jaded Soul is exhausting, impenetrable, and walled on all four sides with catapults launching flaming balls of fire.

Both want everything life has to offer, but the thing is, one is willing to give too much to get it, while the other doesn’t believe the offering of everything exists anymore, if it ever did.

So I ask, which one are you?

Hmm…or is there another option behind Door#3

By Philip Wardlow October, 2021

No Other way


She is a Lady, but never in waiting, she can be needy like a Princess, oh yes assuredly so, at times she can be blind as a bird in a blizzard, at others, attentive as a mother bear to her cubs, she can be sweet as the sweetest berry upon the branch, or sting like a bee if swatted at. She is a beautiful daydreaming creature of the most magical sort, and I am surprised most days what trickles from her mind out to her mouth. All I know is that I love this mish mosh of a beautiful girl and I wouldn’t want her any other way…

by Philip Wardlow August 31st, 2023