Tag Archives: poetry

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Love lost

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The English poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson once wrote, “Tis better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.”

I tried twenty-eight years with the first, and it hurt, oh it fucking hurt when it ended, apparently it hurt her more, I was confidently told by her, but I doubt that, I seriously doubt that, but pain shouldn’t be a competition, so I will let that thought go.

I have lost so much in my life, family, friends, security, careers, contentment, loves, homes, animals and hope itself, but I bounce back well you see, because I have to,

Right…right?

Cue the melancholy music in the background.

Did Tennyson think memories of former loves would console and comfort, or cajole one to action to still wanting a life missed that is now lost?

I was not lost yet then. Lightning did strike and I captured it in a bottle and watched it dance for me and she was beautiful…

For I found a new love, a gem, magically so, from the outset, with a twirl and a twinkle, a kiss and much romance, it felt as if the universe pushed her into my arms and said, “Here she is, she’s all yours, don’t fuck it up son.”

Many a song and poem eloquently talk of second chances, new adventures, new wonders, new laughter, fresh embraces, her hand in mind and always on my mind, a magnet that aligned with mine and her own to me.

Fucking wonderful and rich, earthmoving and damn beautiful like a hundred sunsets bursting from a horizon upon waking from a fevered nightmare of loneliness and despair.

That was me…

But I feel I am a bad egg morally, underserving of any accolades of bravery and courage and fortitude, and discipline. Knowing my Father’s history a little, and my father’s father even less, along with my brothers, I feel a small curse has percolated into my blood to always be fated a fateful outcome no matter the decisions made.

Such praise has been heaped upon me in my growing as a child into manhood, but I am afraid the bar was always beguiled in other’s eyes as compared to others who were woefully low, so how could anyone but not think I was an angel in all things with no competition when the devil was racing in first place in front of me.

How indeed, as you can see I don’t think too much of the me that is me.

Therein lies the curse.

I have always felt apart, alone from the very start of me, like a firefly in the dark amongst a myriad of other flickering lights with none answering back.

It only took a few looks of disdain, a word or two of disgust and accusation whether deserved or not to send me to spiral into a nothingness which has been hard to pull myself from.

I don’t do well when I am suddenly the villain and the surrounding actor’s lines are designed to un-wide me, and malign me to a mere trope and cliche of malice and mayhem as they take nothing into themselves, all seemingly seem innocent since the day they were born.

I did love, and I lost, and then I did love again Lord Tennyson…but what happens when you lose it all over again?

by Philip Wardlow November 10th, 2026

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Throwing shade at the Inquisition

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You were the judge, the hangman and the noose, the dunking tank, the cold cold water drowning, the fire burning, blistering and bubbling as I was tied too tight to a stout wooden pole of your cutting, and even then, you brought out the red hot poker to blind mine eyes, and a dull knife to remove a tongue lest I challenge you too much with a stare and a word.


I thought the ancient Popes had packed their robes up long ago never to be seen, along with their minions of shallow hates and ignorant fears done at your bidding, oh resurrected inquisitor visiting me in the dead of night, my fate already seems sealed no matter the answers I give to each question intoned darkly at me.

You poor poor soul, how I plea for you to be rid of your own righteous indignities that have darkened your soul that won’t let you truly feel free.
But you remain to just be, ever highly posted in your heaven on high

As I slink out the backdoor with a tip of my hat, a sly grin, and a wave goodbye knowing lady luck was on my side to have never let me lay down in bed by your side.

By Philip Wardlow May 27th 2026

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Skull

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I found a dead eyed human skull on the beach today that the tide revealed to me. I took it home because it told me to, and I swore it gave me a mischievous little grin. Now it sits by my bedside, and on the morrow I fear I will awaken a different man.

by Philip Wardlow ~

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

When Men look Within

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Hubris drove me, while callused hardened hands climbed up a mountain of only half of my design but ownership shall always be all mine, and mine alone for all time , for my mind is my own, and my feet followed the thoughts of many paths wrought with failings heaped upon failings echoing far back from time primordial.

As well did my tongue did wag, and my mouth did speak, with a smile did I ride the waves of pride, to seek rougish behaviors most unseemly with nary a thought to love’s insensitivities and slights, thinking I owned the world with but my charms and that it was always enough to just give a smile to wash the bile off me.

I once thought I had a conscience, until I tested it and found out I did not,

Not truly, until my world flew apart, over, an over, an over, an over, for it seemed the wanting of discipline, honor, and good behaviour didn’t go hand in hand when the soul of a man is weak, in trying to seek solace in a life he feels he deserves.

Oh pride, oh pride, oh pride! How does it divide us in twain!

I seek an esteem that may just be a dream, a dream that dwells deep within me,

Yet I still seek it. I still seek it

For my concsience calls to me from a great depth and I call to it, ever calling, and it seems to be rising, rising to meet me.

One day, one day it shall.

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Far Flung

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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

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Moon

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Mr. Moon ~

 

Why oh why Mr. Moon do you walk

hands in pockets, eyes downcast,

as the stars sit in there satin blue sheet,

surrounding?

Don’t you know it’s all for you?

No eyes but yours can see

all that the sky can give.

Feel blessed in this.

Earthly trappings are not the

core of your constance.

Nor the phases you

endure in your

soul’s search

for permanence.

Even in shadow,

yet you are still whole.

Even though no others

may see.

You will always be whole.

 

by Philip Wardlow 2025
Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Raven Prince Flies

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I call myself the Raven Prince, for I am dark, intelligent and wise, and playful to a fault, shy enough to not trust enough until an allotted time of my choosing and even then I am on my guard of you.
A Raven is a solitary creatures at times
unlike the Crow with a clan perhaps
numbering in the tens to a hundred strong.
Me, I am no Crow.
I am but a lonely Raven with only a few raven friends
who find me.
A Lonely life, for even the other ravens do not truly know me
Not for any of the ways I find I need them to.
So I am a lonely Raven even when amongst them
Yet, I fly…
because it easy, it’s effortless
to find distraction in the heights,
to see all the beauty laid out below me
waiting to be discovered just by me
and only me internally.
I am the Prince of Ravens you see.,
isolated, above the others, not by choice
but simply because my place is not
amongst them,
Why?
I could wonder why until I have died
and still not know the reason why.
I have always felt it though since a child.
It just is.
So I fly to distract
Ever higher, ever lower….
wherever I choose.
I will choose it
because I am the Raven Prince

by Philip Wardlow Dec, 2024

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

When Feeling was easy

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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
 
  
Inquiring Minds, Poetry/Quote of the Week

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

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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)

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

My Hinterland

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~ 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